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For every story like this, I imagine there's (at least) one other where some green engineer set up a simulation with garbage assumptions, and argued that since

For every story like this, I imagine there's (at least) one other where some green engineer set up a simulation with garbage assumptions, and argued that since the calculation was done by <insert advanced software package>, they must be right. I could tell you many stories of witnessing otherwise smart engineers run the worst possible simulations I've ever seen, but argue that their results were correct simply because the computer generated them.

marcinzm 4y ago
There's been jokes about Spherical Cow (ie: bad assumptions leading to clearly impossible results) since probably before computers.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  It definitely had nothing to do with computers. My physics class was full of jokes about frictionless brakes, massless points, and pointless masses.
operator-name 4y ago
Computer simulations seem to have this blinding effect that makes it difficult to consider uncertainty and other assumptions. I suspect its our trust and reliance on digital computing, and the amount of cultural messaging.
WalterBright 4y ago
Your post is exactly why the engineers were dismissing "computer numbers". I was certainly a very green engineer, but I had played around a lot with numerical simulations in college. I knew I could get better, faster, and more reliable results with a computer program than the calculators everyone else used. My lead was right to be very skeptical, and I enjoyed the challenge he set up for me. I had no problem being asked to prove my results were correct.
- operator-name 4y ago
  There's no distinction between "computer numbers" and human numbers, either the model has a bad assumption or it's good enough, computer or no computer. The point is that we shouldn't trust a model just because it is run on a computer, just as we should trust that hand written calculations may not have numerical mistakes.

marcinzm 4y ago

There's been jokes about Spherical Cow (ie: bad assumptions leading to clearly impossible results) since probably before computers.

WalterBright 4y ago
It definitely had nothing to do with computers. My physics class was full of jokes about frictionless brakes, massless points, and pointless masses.

operator-name 4y ago

Computer simulations seem to have this blinding effect that makes it difficult to consider uncertainty and other assumptions. I suspect its our trust and reliance on digital computing, and the amount of cultural messaging.

WalterBright 4y ago

Your post is exactly why the engineers were dismissing "computer numbers". I was certainly a very green engineer, but I had played around a lot with numerical simulations in college. I knew I could get better, faster, and more reliable results with a computer program than the calculators everyone else used. My lead was right to be very skeptical, and I enjoyed the challenge he set up for me. I had no problem being asked to prove my results were correct.

operator-name 4y ago
There's no distinction between "computer numbers" and human numbers, either the model has a bad assumption or it's good enough, computer or no computer. The point is that we shouldn't trust a model just because it is run on a computer, just as we should trust that hand written calculations may not have numerical mistakes.