On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 17:36:52 -0500, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

>On 2024-03-06 10:31, John Larkin wrote:
>> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 15:50:44 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/11/2024 3:39 PM, bitrex wrote:
>>>> On 1/11/2024 2:15 PM, john larkin wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 13:13:48 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/11/2024 10:04 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
>>>>>>> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 06:37:59 -0800, John Larkin <jl@997PotHill.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 22:46:46 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On 1/8/2024 10:02 PM, John Larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 01:46:47 -0000 (UTC), Dan Purgert <dan@djph.net>
>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On 2024-01-08, john larkin wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>>>>>>> When do you get your best electronic design ideas?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> When I've had a chance to relax (note - they're still *bad* by
>>>>>>>>>>> good long
>>>>>>>>>>> way ;) )
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> My mental model is that, given some modest kit of components,
>>>>>>>>>> there is
>>>>>>>>>> a multidimensional "solution space" of possible circuits that
>>>>>>>>>> could be
>>>>>>>>>> made from them. With, say, 200 parts the number of possible circuits
>>>>>>>>>> exceeds the number of electrons in the universe. All the digikey
>>>>>>>>>> parts
>>>>>>>>>> make more. So how does one search that space in, say, a few hours or
>>>>>>>>>> days?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Use quantum computing. Set up a goodness mask and apply it to all of
>>>>>>>>>> them simultaneously.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> There's a standard "mental imagery vividness test":
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> <https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Apparently there's a condition called "aphantasia" where the
>>>>>>>>> person is
>>>>>>>>> unable to visualize imagery in their "minds eye" and can only
>>>>>>>>> think in
>>>>>>>>> words. Purportedly more common among engineers though I'm unsure
>>>>>>>>> what if
>>>>>>>>> any disciplines are involved.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Interesting. I would have expected that all engineers visualize.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Many engineers are bad with words. I know a couple that freely
>>>>>>>> substitute milli and micro, and capacitor and inductor, when speaking.
>>>>>>>> That creates difficulties. Lots of engineers stutter, or can't find
>>>>>>>> common words.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I took Western Civilization in college (graduated with a BSEE in 1969)
>>>>>>> - the Professor was spellbinding, and his lectures were standing room
>>>>>>> only in the largest lecture hall on campus.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My Teaching Assistant for Western Civilization had started out in the
>>>>>>> EE department, and switched to History about half way through.  Why?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> He said that while he was passing all the academic courses with good
>>>>>>> grades, he had observed that his fellow EE students could "see" the
>>>>>>> electrons flowing, and so could jump directly to the solution.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But he could not see those electrons, and so had to analyze his way
>>>>>>> from first principles, which would be far too slow to be competitive
>>>>>>> in a real EE job.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So he switched majors.  My reaction at the time was that he was
>>>>>>> exactly correct, and that switching was a very wise decision.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Joe Gwinn
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I also grew up around white male Americans. and an important step in my
>>>>>> professional development was ignoring the overwhelming majority of
>>>>>> stories dudes tell like "I can see the electrons flowing" "I knew I
>>>>>> wouldn't be competitive enough so I...", "Yeah Susan is totally into me,
>>>>>> we banged the other night, bro" and all the fantastical stories dudes
>>>>>> regularly tell, which even many children who still believe in Santa
>>>>>> Claus and the tooth fairy would be straight-up too insightful to take
>>>>>> particularly seriously.
>>>>>
>>>>> I can see the current flowing on a schematic. But positive charges,
>>>>> not electrons.
>>>>>
>>>>> Probably some non-white non-male people can too.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think it's a skill that can be learned with practice like many others.
>>>> and the main reason people stop doing things and get out of certain
>>>> avenues of study is they just don't like doing them.
>>>>
>>>> The whole "I knew I wouldn't be competitive"-thing sounds like a
>>>> back-rationalization to me, "I got out of EE because I wasn't getting
>>>> much out of it and I wasn't really motivated by the material" is much
>>>> more common, but not as cute a story.
>>>>
>>>> Young adults are fickle, I wanted to be in a big time rock band at age
>>>> 20. Sounds dreadful to me now but the heart wants what the heart wants
>>>> in the moment. I was into cognitive science for a while too but the
>>>> department professors were uninspiring and the material annoyingly
>>>> abstruse at least for me at 20.
>>>
>>> Incidentally I think another reason people leave engineering tracks is
>>> that the quality of the didaction at anything but top-tier US
>>> universities tends to range from just okay to abysmal.
>>
>> People leave engineering mostly because they shouldn't have signed up
>> for it in the first place; too many do. Any engineering school that
>> provides the basics is good enough. Nobody teaches undergrad
>> "electronic design" that I know of.
>>
>> I suspect that the most rigorous schools actually drive some
>> engineering talent away. They treat engineering as another formal,
>> rigorous scientific/mathematical discipline, which it's not. That's
>> another discussion.
>>
>> I was just talking about that with a guru at a giant 2-character-named
>> corporation. He won't work on anything below a billion dollar project.
>> We agree that ee schools emphasize semiconductor design too much (the
>> ICE in SPICE) and that the semi industry slurps up the best.
>>
>> Granted your assumption about US universities, what universities are
>> best at ee "didaction" ? What countries create the best electronics
>> designers?
>
>As far as I know, the best places for turning out BSEEs who can actually
>design stuff are CU Boulder and MSU Bozeman.
>
>(Insert obligatory vigorous disagreement on the value of rigorous math.)
>
>Cheers
>
>Phil Hobbs

Math is wonderful and necessary. But it doesn't have ideas.

When I was at Tulane, the ee dean told me that undergraduates don't do
design, that was reserved for grad school. Funny.

I've employed two, maybe three, PhDs and I didn't find them to be
especially creative. They seemed to be afraid to break rules. I do
have a very recent PhD hire that I'm optimistic about; she has had a
bunch of hands-on experience in power electronics and had ideas in an
interview brainstorm.

It would be fun to teach a course on electronic design.