Best civil & environmental engineering books according to redditors
We found 955 Reddit comments discussing the best civil & environmental engineering books. We ranked the 453 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Continued carbon emissions are putting humanity on an irreversible course for planetary devastation. If you want to get an idea of what the real world implications we may see from the 2, 3, 4+ ... degrees C of warming we are headed for in the coming decades barring radical action, check out Mark Lynas' book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet
This webpage summarizes some of the key points from Lynas' book:
A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms
Here's my rough list of textbook recommendations. There are a ton of Dover paperbacks that I didn't put on here, since they're not as widely used, but they are really great and really cheap.
Amazon search for Dover Books on mathematics
There's also this great list of undergraduate books in math that has become sort of famous: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicmath.htm
Pre-Calculus / Problem-Solving
Calculus
Linear Algebra
Differential Equations
Number Theory
Proof-Writing
Analysis
Complex Analysis
Functional Analysis
Partial Differential Equations
Higher-dimensional Calculus and Differential Geometry
Abstract Algebra
Geometry
Topology
Set Theory and Logic
Combinatorics / Discrete Math
Graph Theory
P. S., if you Google search any of the topics above, you are likely to find many resources. You can find a lot of lecture notes by searching, say, "real analysis lecture notes filetype:pdf site:.edu"
These are some very broad questions, and some (like the age of the Earth) are outside the scope of biology but you are not alone and your questions, unfortunately, are common, especially for those coming from religiously fundamentalist backgrounds like yourself.
> I need to see evidence for myself.
If I showed you a murder weapon, a fingerprint that was lifted from it, and the finger print of a suspect, and you knew nothing about finger prints then the evidence, even in your hands, physically, wouldn't mean much to you. What's far more important than the evidence itself are the inferences we make from it, based on an understanding of how that evidence matters in some investigation. The same is true in biology and other fields of science.
So while you can certainly visit natural history museums and view their collections (like this or this), just seeing specimens won't really give you the whole story.
> Why should I, personally, be convinced that the Earth is billions of years old?
If you care about having beliefs that are true, then you should devote some time to understanding how we know the true age of the Earth, and the many different methods we use to demonstrate that it is indeed very old.
Wikipedia would be a great start:
As is typically the case, the sources are the the bottom of each page. If you're like me and you enjoy pop-science documentaries, you might enjoy episode 7 of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, titled The Clean Room which deals with how Clair Patterson became involved with one of the first accurate methods of dating the Earth, using uranium-lead dating. It does a good job of explaining the basics of radiometric dating, why it's accurate, and why we can trust it the way we trust other scientific processes to give us good answers.
> How can I better understand the Fossil record, which supposedly somehow tells us that humans and dinosaurs were not in the same time period?
You likely already know that sedimentary rocks are formed in layers, with newer rocks being deposited on top of older rocks. So while there are processes that tilt distort rocks, we don't find examples of older rocks being found on top of younger rocks, and we don't find examples of rabbit fossils being in the same layers as velociraptors, for example. A lot of the evidence you're likely to encounter is a variation on this theme: things that happened a long time ago leave evidence that is separate from the evidence from things that happened more recently.
While I've not personally read it, I hear it being recommended by people from fundamentalist backgrounds saying that it helped them: The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood.
> And though I get it as a concept, natural selection has always been confusing to me; I can't see how it would practically happen in real life.
It might be that you're used to thinking on time scales you are familiar with. A billion years is an incredibly long time. An analogy here that is often useful is to think of the entire history of the universe, mapped onto a single calendar year, with 00:00 January 1st being the first meaningful moment after the Big Bang, and December 31st at 23:59:59 being now. In this analogy, our planet did not appear until the first week of September, and the first life appearing sometime around the middle of September. The first amphibians, descendants of lobe-finned fish, appeared around December 22nd, and the first mammals appeared December 26th. Anatomically modern humans appeared about 8 minutes before midnight on Dec 31st. You can see more examples here. I know that for me, this really helps me conceptualise deep time.
Dogs are descended from wolves, and they domesticated themselves beginning a few tens of thousands of years ago. Most of the breeds of dogs you are familiar with appeared only in the last few centuries, through artificial selection. If we can go from wolves to chihuahuas in hundreds or thousands of years, it is not a huge stretch to imagine what natural selection could do over millions of years. And, we have lots of evidence to support this idea.
> Because of the way I was raised, a lot of this sounds like science fiction to me.
The difference between any holy book you'll read, and what we know from science, is that behind the person saying it, there is an answer to the question "how did it happen?" At most, a religious answer will involve some shrugging of the shoulders, and what frankly amounts to "magic".
There is a whole book on the subject how to finance roads privately. Walter Block - Privatization of Roads and Highways. You can download it for free from the mises institute. Here is a lecture you can watch.
If you're starting out, I'd start with NASA's Indices for propulsion and aerodynamics to get familiarized with everything.
NASA Propulsion Index
NASA Aerodynamics Index
Once you get into it and have the physics and math foundation you can get into the weeds:
Fundamentals of Aerodynamics
This is more of a reference than a learning tool:
NACA airfoil generator
And then if you get into CFD/simulation An Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics and Computational Methods for Fluid Dynamics are pretty good.
Climate scientist Michael Mann criticizes several of the claims in the article as overstated in this facebook post, though like most scientists he agrees with the general point that the consequences of climate change will be dire unless we take serious action (he has a book for non-scientists outlining the dangers and the politicization of the issue, The Madhouse Effect). And if anyone's interested in a book focused specifically on the best scientific predictions about the consequences of various amounts of warming, you could check out Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (see this post from one of the climate scientists on the realclimate.org blog, which gives it a positive review and says it accurately reflects the scientific literature on future scenarios).
I think our best chance of avoiding disaster lies in some combination of moving over to renewables and/or nuclear within the next few decades combined with massive production of carbon capture devices in the second half of the century, which could allow us to keep the warming to around 2 degrees or less. One important point is that without such massive deployment of carbon capture we don't really stand a chance of keeping it that low--check out the graphs here where the first two graphs show how fast carbon emissions would have to go to zero without any carbon capture if we want to keep warming to 1.5 degrees or less, along with a third graph showing how the decline can be more gradual if we have negative emissions later. The graphs are based on the "carbon quotas" for different amounts of warming on p. 64 of this IPCC report, and the quota for 2 degrees is not that much larger than 1.5 degrees (2900 gigatons vs. 2250 gigatons, only 29% larger) so the corresponding graphs for keeping it under 2 degrees wouldn't look too different.
The cause for hope here is that prototypes for carbon capture devices that remove CO2 much more efficiently than trees have already been built, see this article and this one, along with this interview with a physicist involved in the research where he makes the following point:
>My hope would be that we then would have a device that can take out a ton a day of carbon from the atmosphere. If you take out a ton a day, you would need 100 million air capture devices to take out all the C02 that we putting into the atmosphere today. And I would argue that it would be a lot less than that because we would also be capturing carbon at the flue stack, and not making the C02 in the first place by developing solar and wind technologies. ... There are about 1 billion cars out there. We are building 70 million cars and light trucks a year. So that kind of industrial production is quite possible. Eventually we should be able to produce an air capture device for roughly what it costs to manufacture a car.
I also think that another reason to be hopeful is that we may in the not-too-distant future achieve full automation of the production process for most mass-produced goods, leading to the possibility of self-replicating robot factories (what Eric Drexler calls clanking replicators), and I think the effect of this would tend to drive down the prices of all mass-produced goods--including things like carbon capture devices and solar panels--down to barely more than the cost of the raw materials and energy that went into them, so large-scale production of any good would be much cheaper. I talked more about this idea here.
Ah, sorry - I mean that's a pretty sufficient TL;DR, but if you want more of a story, I was never really a great Mormon - I always had my issues with the doctrine, only went semi-actively, and never served a mission, but after moving to SLC for a job I needed friends so I began attending a YSA ward and I was all-in. I met my wife and we became engaged. I went through the temple for the first time at 27 - it disturbed me. I never went back (other than for the wedding) and became an active NOM at that point.
Then one night, in 2014, I was on field assignment in Northern Canada. I was working night shift logging drill core and reading a book about the implausibility of Noah's Flood during my down time. I decided to see how this jived with Mormon beliefs. Well, one thing led to another and I stumbled across the CES Letter. Suddenly it all made sense - why I could never be the good Mormon I was raised to be. Why I had so many issues with the one true church.
I got home, let her know what I had discovered. She was not happy. We argued a lot over religion. A few months later we discovered we were having a little boy. She made it clear our son would be raised Mormon. I hated that because I knew he would be raised to see me as a sinner. I knew she was not a huge fan of Utah, so I decided applying for work anywhere. I ran this across her and she agreed. I figured Godless New England would be our best bet - I must've sent out 100 resumes. No luck for a year. We had our baby, I blessed him in our house, they'd go to church without me. I kept sending resumes and started expanding my locations. Seattle, Portland, Pittsburgh, New York, ... Then finally, at long last I got a job offer! ... The offer was in Detroit. I knew nothing about Detroit other than abandoned homes, but... we needed a new home, and Detroit needs new people, so it sounded perfect!
So we packed up everything, sold our house, and moved 2,000 miles to the Great Lakes State and settled in a little suburb of Detroit. She relaxed the Mormon-image that she was keeping for her family and friends over the first few months. A sleeveless shirt here, a Sunday at the park there, but yes we still argued about church and she still attended most of the time.
One Sunday morning we had an argument about the November 2015 policy. I knew her acceptance of LGBT rights and I knew this terrible policy had to bother her as much as it did me. She left for church angry and texted me about 60 minutes later, "You're right. I don't believe it anymore."
I felt so bad, but so relieved at the same time. Today we go to church on occasion, but for cultural/familial reasons; neither of us believe - though I believe she still maintains a minor NOM aspect and maintains firm belief in Christianity while I'm a bit more Agnostic. Our little boy has never been to nursery and never will. We'll be having a second kid in a few weeks and they'll never know anything of Mormonism other than, "Oh, that's that thing Grandma and Grandpa do on Sundays."
Oh, and did I mention we love Detroit? It's an incredible city! Not just because we moved here, but the history, the arts, the culture, the sports, the cuisine - it's a real big city, but at a discount price. Plus, neighbors don't judge us for not being at church. We just bought a house, and I think we may just make it a long term home.
Speakers:
Amplifiers and other goodies:
Morgan Jones will get you into building with tubes, but also check the books from Bruce Rozenblit at Transcendent. For free books, Pete Millett has a lot of them at his site. I recommend Norman Crowhurst's books for an excellent intro for laypeople.
If you want components, you can get resistors, capacitors, etc. from Digikey, Mouser, Newark, Redco, and Antique Electronic Supply.
For speaker supplies, look to Madisound, Speaker City U.S.A. and Parts Express. Madisound and Parts Express sell kits, so you can knock off a build without tools.
There's a lot more, but this will give you things to chew over for a few weeks at least. Please come back and ask here if you want advice or need help with anything.
Mark's Handbook for Mechanical Engineers
The Mis-Education of Mathematics Teachers made a huge impression on me, in particular its emphasis on content knowledge and the fundamental principles of mathematics. More recently, the following comment by Ian Stewart has persuaded me to put more emphasis on the visual aspects of the subjects I teach:
> One of the saddest developments in school mathematics has been the downgrading of the visual for the formal. I'm not lamenting the loss of traditional Euclidean geometry, despite its virtues, because it too emphasised stilted formalities. But to replace our rich visual tradition by silly games with 2x2 matrices has always seemed to me to be the height of folly. It is therefore a special pleasure to see Tristan Needham's Visual Complex Analysis with its elegantly illustrated visual approach. Yes, he has 2x2 matrices―but his are interesting. (Ian Stewart, New Scientist, 11 October 1997) (source)
> So he can get to the unsolvability of the general degree five polynomials in half a year, so what? In my undergrad algebra course it's taken us 2 and a half months to get there, from axioms.
He was talking about teaching that material to schoolchildren, not university students. I'd say that dictates a different pace.
> The value of concise, direct communication is lost on this individual.
He's an internationally renowned mathematician who is considered a very concise and clear writer. His books Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics and Ordinary Differential Equations are universally regarded as masterpieces in their fields.
If visualizing complex analysis is your thing, I'd suggest "Visual Complex Analysis" by Tristan Needham.
sound reenforcement handbook for fundamentals
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0881889008&pd_rd_r=CCG9CPVAPDH3ECTFGHMA&pd_rd_w=C5R8y&pd_rd_wg=5hRnU&psc=1&refRID=CCG9CPVAPDH3ECTFGHMA
system set up and optimization
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496423594&sr=8-1&keywords=sound+system+design+and+optimization
deeper fundamentals and underlying theory behind systems,
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-Don-Davis/dp/0240818466/ref=pd_sim_14_10?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0240818466&pd_rd_r=HSPA70XSS4QNR9DZF1P5&pd_rd_w=5ywPt&pd_rd_wg=X1Td5&psc=1&refRID=HSPA70XSS4QNR9DZF1P5
approachable fundamentals, but not too much deeper theory - kind of a up and running style of book
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Operators-Handbook-Guides-online/dp/1617805599/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
When you've gotten through those, and have a handle on the material, I'd recommend Bob McCarthy's Sound System Design and Optimization, Davis' Sound System Engineering, and Ballou's Handbook for Sound Engineers.
I'm not sure what's specifically standard for those types of applications and what sorts of cases are run, but industry standard changes a lot even in single industries.
CFD is often the long pole in the tent because of the plethora of assumptions made on the flow physics. We don't have computers fast enough to resolve everything easily so generally engineers use lots of models which don't always work. Good boundary condition data is often hard to come by, complex geometry is hard to mesh well, and you end up in a position where lots of subtle things can make everything go wrong.
It sounds like you're doing a sort of aero analysis, which often are very costly computationally because the mesh requirements are so large. If you want to buy hardware you're looking at $2-3k minimum in equipment to get the job done very slowly. Which doesn't include the software, if you want a commercial package those are very, very costly, typically far outside hobbyist range. Open-source packages exist but you have to be willing to put a lot of effort into them, since they often lack good documentation and training. You may be able to limit the size of the case to save yourself computational cost, but then see my comment about assumptions above.
If your work has a commercial package onsite that you're allowed to play with on company hardware this is your best entry route. The two most common packages are Fluent from ANSYS and STAR-CCM+ from Siemens PLM. They will have good documentation and step-by-step tutorials.
If you really want to delve into things yourself, you can download OpenFOAM, which is an open-source package. It has a steep learning curve, but tutorials exist with varying quality on youtube and elsewhere.
CFD is not really something to jump in to without learning theory, though. I would recommend you pick up a book or two. My recommendation for your sort of scenario would be this one: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Computational-Fluid-Dynamics-Finite/dp/0131274988 though you may be able to find PDF copies on the internet. You really need to learn what the buttons do before you press them, else you can easily land yourself in a position with good-looking pictures that are nonsense.
Your post has too little context/content for anyone to give you particularly relevant or specific advice. You should list what you know already and what you’re trying to learn. I find it’s easiest to research a new subject when I have a concrete problem I’m trying to solve.
But anyway, I’m going to assume you studied up through single variable calculus and are reasonably motivated to put some effort in with your reading. Here are some books which you might enjoy, depending on your interests. All should be reasonably accessible (to, say, a sharp and motivated undergraduate), but they’ll all take some work:
(in no particular order)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (wikipedia)
To Mock a Mockingbird (wikipedia)
Structure in Nature is a Strategy for Design
Geometry and the Imagination
Visual Group Theory (website)
The Little Schemer (website)
Visual Complex Analysis (website)
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos (website)
Music, a Mathematical Offering (website)
QED
Mathematics and its History
The Nature and Growth of Modern Mathematics
Proofs from THE BOOK (wikipedia)
Concrete Mathematics (website, wikipedia)
The Symmetries of Things
Quantum Computing Since Democritus (website)
Solid Shape
On Numbers and Games (wikipedia)
Street-Fighting Mathematics (website)
But also, you’ll probably get more useful response somewhere else, e.g. /r/learnmath. (On /r/math you’re likely to attract downvotes with a question like this.)
You might enjoy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/2mkmk0/a_compilation_of_useful_free_online_math_resources/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mathbooks/top/?sort=top&t=all
Shigley's is great for learning how to design and why you design the way you do. It's the book I used in college and still reference at work. I'm not so sure it'd be great for a novice engineer. For a more practical approach, I'd recommend a few below (not necessarily in this order):
A nice free reference manual that includes all sorts of design equations is the NCEES reference handbook. I used it back when I took my FE exam (the first exam you take before you become what's call a "Professional Engineer" in the US). It's a nice PDF to have around, though it doesn't go into a lot of explanation as to what the equations are.
A few web resources I use are: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/, http://www.roymech.co.uk/
I'm sure I'll think of some more and, if I do, I'll update this post.
Hope that helps.
/u/another_user_name posted this list a while back. Actual aerospace textbooks are towards the bottom but you'll need a working knowledge of the prereqs first.
Non-core/Pre-reqs:
Mathematics:
Calculus.
1-4) Calculus, Stewart -- This is a very common book and I felt it was ok, but there's mixed opinions about it. Try to get a cheap, used copy.
1-4) Calculus, A New Horizon, Anton -- This is highly valued by many people, but I haven't read it.
1-4) Essential Calculus With Applications, Silverman -- Dover book.
More discussion in this reddit thread.
Linear Algebra
3) Linear Algebra and Its Applications,Lay -- I had this one in school. I think it was decent.
3) Linear Algebra, Shilov -- Dover book.
Differential Equations
4) An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations, Coddington -- Dover book, highly reviewed on Amazon.
G) Partial Differential Equations, Evans
G) Partial Differential Equations For Scientists and Engineers, Farlow
More discussion here.
Numerical Analysis
5) Numerical Analysis, Burden and Faires
Chemistry:
Physics:
2-4) Physics, Cutnel -- This was highly recommended, but I've not read it.
Programming:
Introductory Programming
Programming is becoming unavoidable as an engineering skill. I think Python is a strong introductory language that's got a lot of uses in industry.
Core Curriculum:
Introduction:
Aerodynamics:
Thermodynamics, Heat transfer and Propulsion:
Flight Mechanics, Stability and Control
5+) Flight Stability and Automatic Control, Nelson
5+)[Performance, Stability, Dynamics, and Control of Airplanes, Second Edition](http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Stability-Dynamics-Airplanes-Education/dp/1563475839/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315534435&sr=8-1, Pamadi) -- I gather this is better than Nelson
Engineering Mechanics and Structures:
3-4) Engineering Mechanics: Statics and Dynamics, Hibbeler
6-8) Analysis and Design of Flight Vehicle Structures, Bruhn -- A good reference, never really used it as a text.
G) Introduction to the Mechanics of a Continuous Medium, Malvern
G) Fracture Mechanics, Anderson
G) Mechanics of Composite Materials, Jones
Electrical Engineering
Design and Optimization
Space Systems
A few degrees warmer is about how much we can stand. So, with that few degrees comes at least a few feet of sea level rise, likely more. So coastal areas that tend to be the highest populated, are going to need to retreat from the coast. That's going to be a huge economic burden. How is that burden born? Best left to economists I suppose....
Also, California and the west will tend to get drier, which will affect agriculture and I would venture agricultural costs. The mid-west is also slated to become drier, this is at a time when the Ogallala aquifer is being sucked dry, so we are going to be running out of a pretty precious resource in large chunks of the US. Further abroad, with melting glaciers hundreds of millions may be left without water. The middle east is supposed to also dry up. This is likely to create a humanitarian crisis.
There could be significant changes in disease distributions as well. With things like malaria, Zika, etc. becoming more prevalent in the US because of a spread of their vektors (e.g., certain tropical mosquito species).
Depending on the severity, much of the Amazon rain forest may dry out, though there is some good debate around that topic. Coral reefs laregly won't be able to keep up, which could crash some fisheries and ecosystems. Forest diseases may be more prevalent (e.g., emerald ash borer in the eastern US that is wiping out ash trees), and extinction rates are thought to spike, with 20-30% of species at risk of extinction.
Check out a book 6 degrees. I haven't read it yet, but it's on my wish list - supposed to be a good run down of the catastrphe that 6 degrees of warming will bring - basically an end of civilization as we know it. Some respected scientists think that the population will end up crashing to 1 billion in the next century..... that will cause some chaos...
Six Degrees by Mark Lynas. Great book, he read 3000 papers on the effects of climate change and summarized them, with extensive references. One chapter per degree C.
At 3C it just looks disastrous. At 4C the survival of modern civilization starts to look doubtful. At 6C it's hard to imagine our species surviving to any meaningful extent.
On top of the recommendation for the PE review book. Grab a copy of Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain. I think the first edition was written in 1934, and its still in print.
Hundreds of solutions to many types of beams, plates, pressure veseels, and misc other problems. If you are doing much FEA or stress analysis at work, this book is a must.
http://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-8th/dp/0071742476
There's "A Mathematical Coloring Book": http://www.lulu.com/content/4858716 (free download!)
Somewhat more serious, I like "Visual Complex Analysis": http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Complex-Analysis-Tristan-Needham/dp/0198534469/
It sounds like you are looking at building a pair of speakers.
You need to buy the latest version of this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580109
And read it front to back. Twice. It will answer many of your questions; it's well worth the price. I studied the first edition way way back.
Parts Express and Madisound are fine for parts.
Expensive? Let's put this in perspective. How many hours would it take you to build as good a set of cabinets as you can buy for $130 each on Parts Express? I assume that's what you're looking at. Trust me, unless you're a woodworker (or don't care what they look like) the cost in time is worth WAY more than that to get a good cabinet.
Want to 'cheat'? Get yourself a pair of cabinets from a thrift store or garage sale -some old pair with walnut veneer that are heavy and maybe have blown drivers. Seriously. You can ditch the drivers, add some material inside the cabinet to reduce the volume to what you need, put in a new front plate and drivers, and oil up that old walnut and you're in business.
What makes a speaker $10 and one $200? Engineering and quality construction and performance. Bear in mind that you reach a point of diminishing returns with drivers; you might get 95% of the performance of a $200 woofer with one that only costs $150. Is that extra 5% worth the cost?
Check out this man's work:
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/
Engineers don't come any finer than this man, he's amazing. Read everything he writes and check out his projects.
What you need to do to make your project sound good is do tons and tons of reading and research into what others have done. Find projects that have been built and refined and are known to be successful. Build one of those first. Remember, your time is valuable. You could waste a lot of money and time on something that sounds disappointing.
I built some speakers and subwoofers (more suited to DIY for beginners than 2-3 way designs) and came to realize that it's a mix of sound engineering and art. And lots of time.
Good luck!
Speakers are a bit too complicated to learn much by just taking them apart and asking questions about what you find. This goes double for any commercial product with active electronics inside.
​
If you want to learn, I'd read a book on the subject. This one is a good one.
Machine Design by Norton
Theory of Machines and Mechanisms by Shigley
are considered the two bibles on machine design and are common in machine design courses.
Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby
The Machinery's Handbook is a must have and I assume you already know about this.
Mechanisms and Mechanical Designs Sourcebook is good to help spark ideas or solve problems. There are other books along the same lines.
There's information on tolerancing and machining in The Machinery's Handbook especially. I'm not sure on other resources for those. There are books on manufacturing processes that'll discuss the tolerances capable and design limitations.
Here you go.
NCEES Study Material
Machinery's Handbook
Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain
Beam Equations for how far it will bend, and the formula stress=M*y/I.
Notice both are inversely proportional to the second moment of area (I), which for a circular tube is given by the second equation on this list.
Roark's has a far more complete list of beam scenarios, the seven in that image may not cover your use cases.
Edit: Here's a scan that was lifted from an older edition of Roark's. It should have anything you're looking for.
I'd like to give you my two cents as well on how to proceed here. If nothing else, this will be a second opinion. If I could redo my physics education, this is how I'd want it done.
If you are truly wanting to learn these fields in depth I cannot stress how important it is to actually work problems out of these books, not just read them. There is a certain understanding that comes from struggling with problems that you just can't get by reading the material. On that note, I would recommend getting the Schaum's outline to whatever subject you are studying if you can find one. They are great books with hundreds of solved problems and sample problems for you to try with the answers in the back. When you get to the point you can't find Schaums anymore, I would recommend getting as many solutions manuals as possible. The problems will get very tough, and it's nice to verify that you did the problem correctly or are on the right track, or even just look over solutions to problems you decide not to try.
Basics
I second Stewart's Calculus cover to cover (except the final chapter on differential equations) and Halliday, Resnick and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Not all sections from HRW are necessary, but be sure you have the fundamentals of mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, and thermal physics down at the level of HRW.
Once you're done with this move on to studying differential equations. Many physics theorems are stated in terms of differential equations so really getting the hang of these is key to moving on. Differential equations are often taught as two separate classes, one covering ordinary differential equations and one covering partial differential equations. In my opinion, a good introductory textbook to ODEs is one by Morris Tenenbaum and Harry Pollard. That said, there is another book by V. I. Arnold that I would recommend you get as well. The Arnold book may be a bit more mathematical than you are looking for, but it was written as an introductory text to ODEs and you will have a deeper understanding of ODEs after reading it than your typical introductory textbook. This deeper understanding will be useful if you delve into the nitty-gritty parts of classical mechanics. For partial differential equations I recommend the book by Haberman. It will give you a good understanding of different methods you can use to solve PDEs, and is very much geared towards problem-solving.
From there, I would get a decent book on Linear Algebra. I used the one by Leon. I can't guarantee that it's the best book out there, but I think it will get the job done.
This should cover most of the mathematical training you need to move onto the intermediate level physics textbooks. There will be some things that are missing, but those are usually covered explicitly in the intermediate texts that use them (i.e. the Delta function). Still, if you're looking for a good mathematical reference, my recommendation is Lua. It may be a good idea to go over some basic complex analysis from this book, though it is not necessary to move on.
Intermediate
At this stage you need to do intermediate level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal physics at the very least. For electromagnetism, Griffiths hands down. In my opinion, the best pedagogical book for intermediate classical mechanics is Fowles and Cassidy. Once you've read these two books you will have a much deeper understanding of the stuff you learned in HRW. When you're going through the mechanics book pay particular attention to generalized coordinates and Lagrangians. Those become pretty central later on. There is also a very old book by Robert Becker that I think is great. It's problems are tough, and it goes into concepts that aren't typically covered much in depth in other intermediate mechanics books such as statics. I don't think you'll find a torrent for this, but it is 5 bucks on Amazon. That said, I don't think Becker is necessary. For quantum, I cannot recommend Zettili highly enough. Get this book. Tons of worked out examples. In my opinion, Zettili is the best quantum book out there at this level. Finally for thermal physics I would use Mandl. This book is merely sufficient, but I don't know of a book that I liked better.
This is the bare minimum. However, if you find a particular subject interesting, delve into it at this point. If you want to learn Solid State physics there's Kittel. Want to do more Optics? How about Hecht. General relativity? Even that should be accessible with Schutz. Play around here before moving on. A lot of very fascinating things should be accessible to you, at least to a degree, at this point.
Advanced
Before moving on to physics, it is once again time to take up the mathematics. Pick up Arfken and Weber. It covers a great many topics. However, at times it is not the best pedagogical book so you may need some supplemental material on whatever it is you are studying. I would at least read the sections on coordinate transformations, vector analysis, tensors, complex analysis, Green's functions, and the various special functions. Some of this may be a bit of a review, but there are some things Arfken and Weber go into that I didn't see during my undergraduate education even with the topics that I was reviewing. Hell, it may be a good idea to go through the differential equations material in there as well. Again, you may need some supplemental material while doing this. For special functions, a great little book to go along with this is Lebedev.
Beyond this, I think every physicist at the bare minimum needs to take graduate level quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. For quantum, I recommend Cohen-Tannoudji. This is a great book. It's easy to understand, has many supplemental sections to help further your understanding, is pretty comprehensive, and has more worked examples than a vast majority of graduate text-books. That said, the problems in this book are LONG. Not horrendously hard, mind you, but they do take a long time.
Unfortunately, Cohen-Tannoudji is the only great graduate-level text I can think of. The textbooks in other subjects just don't measure up in my opinion. When you take Classical mechanics I would get Goldstein as a reference but a better book in my opinion is Jose/Saletan as it takes a geometrical approach to the subject from the very beginning. At some point I also think it's worth going through Arnold's treatise on Classical. It's very mathematical and very difficult, but I think once you make it through you will have as deep an understanding as you could hope for in the subject.
"If engineering were easy, they would have sent a boy with a note."
Seriously there aren't any shortcuts. Either you learn the fundamentals or you don't. But if you want a really good general reference book, get The Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual
Other useful references:
In actual practice, unless we are launching things into space or making them fly through the air, a lot of engineering is just picking thinks that we know will work by experience (if a 1" square tube will work let's use a 2") or by consulting with vendors.
While Anderson's book is pretty good, I wouldn't recommend it in this case. He writes primarily from an aerodynamics view, with the assumption that the Mach number will be important, and deals mainly with density based solvers. None of that is going to be relevant to most hydrodynamics situations. I would instead recommend something that focuses more on pressure based solvers and low Mach number flows, like Ferziger & Peric, or Versteeg & Malalakesera if you want something that is a bit more of a hand book. I find Ferziger & Peric especially helpful for dealing with OpenFOAM because so much of the terminology is similar.
For your particular case I highly recommend the textbook Visual Complex Analysis. Helped bring the "math talk" down to earth for me at least.
A wonderful source for those that want to know questions better: Naive Lie Theory by John Stillwell
(Google excerpts)
This book is a wonderful read and it jumps into quaternions very early on. It really helps one learn about them and other spaces. Is also a remarkably Easy to access book on Lie Theory — (basic calculus, linear algebra only real read. Having seen group theory before is nice, but not necessary)
I’m about half way through and just love it.
Also, somewhat related, Visual Complex Analysis by Tristan Needham is a ridiculously good and powerful book.
(Google excerpts)
Anyone that has to interact with complex numbers should read at least the first two chapters in my opinion.
tl;dr: you need to learn proofs to read most math books, but if nothing else there's a book at the bottom of this post that you can probably dive into with nothing beyond basic calculus skills.
Are you proficient in reading and writing proofs?
If you aren't, this is the single biggest skill that you need to learn (and, strangely, a skill that gets almost no attention in school unless you seek it out as an undergraduate). There are books devoted to developing this skill—How to Prove It is one.
After you've learned about proof (or while you're still learning about it), you can cut your teeth on some basic real analysis. Basic Elements of Real Analysis by Protter is a book that I'm familiar with, but there are tons of others. Ask around.
You don't have to start with analysis; you could start with algebra (Algebra and Geometry by Beardon is a nice little book I stumbled upon) or discrete (sorry, don't know any books to recommend), or something else. Topology probably requires at least a little familiarity with analysis, though.
The other thing to realize is that math books at upper-level undergraduate and beyond are usually terse and leave a lot to the reader (Rudin is famous for this). You should expect to have to sit down with pencil and paper and fill in gaps in explanations and proofs in order to keep up. This is in contrast to high-school/freshman/sophomore-style books like Stewart's Calculus where everything is spelled out on glossy pages with color pictures (and where proofs are mostly absent).
And just because: Visual Complex Analysis is a really great book. Complex numbers, functions and calculus with complex numbers, connections to geometry, non-Euclidean geometry, and more. Lots of explanation, and you don't really need to know how to do proofs.
I like this book.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0198534469/
A skill that takes about ten minutes to get started and a lifetime to perfect. Bob McCarthy's treatise is the definitive work on the subject. The Smaart v8 manual presents some of the key concepts in a pretty digestible format. Also check out my Between the Lines series, in particular the first two installments.
An Introduction to Ordinary Differential Equations - $7.62
Ordinary Differential Equations - $14.74
Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers - $11.01
Dover books on mathematics have great books for very cheap. I personally own the second and third book on this list and I thought they were a great resource, especially for the price.
>ll the services and infrastructure that only exist because other people paid taxes for them in the past.
There we go, the standard "what about the roads?" bullshit. It does not follow that if something is done with tax money today, that it always was so, or that it always must be so. Here's how to take care of roads, for one example: http://www.amazon.com/Privatization-Roads-Highways-Walter-Block/dp/193355004X
People want roads, and if we all got to spend our earnings on the things we choose, I'm sure we'd have no shortage of roads or schools, and we wouldn't be spending money on goons to grope old ladies in airports.
Privatization of Roads and Highways If only just for the ability to answer people when they ask about those damn roads.
http://www.amazon.ca/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580478/ref=pd_sim_b_2/183-8888456-1909825 is probably the introductory tome to speaker design.
Whenever there's a question about stresses I have one book I turn to:
Roark's Formluas. It will at least point you in the right direction.
Marks' Handbook for Engineers - Great specific reference for tolerances and fits, also has good general design "common knowledge", formulas, and practice.
Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers.
At least it is a good reference whenever you want to remember how to do something, and learn some things you didn't learn in school.
https://www.amazon.com/Marks-Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers/dp/0071428674
It's Marks' handbook!
http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers-Edition/dp/0071428674
Search the right places and you can find non-official digital copies, if you know what I mean...
If you want to buy it, it's edited every ten years, and luckly, next year they will launch the 12th edition.
Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain is the bible for such questions.
Any materials or mechanics student should own this book forever.
I don't know if complex analysis is your cup of tea but Visual Complex Analysis by Needham is probably the best math book I've bought in a long time.
> what's supposed to be nice about a math book is that the author distills the content down to the bare essentials with nothing necessary omitted and nothing unnecessary included (this makes time spent reading the book and doing problems from it fulfilling and efficient)
I disagree. That's what's nice about math. What's nice about a math book is that it teaches you math. If you're taking lectures and seminars at a university and discussing the subject with other students then a minimal, rigorous and terse textbook maybe just what you need. However, if you're learning math as a hobby in your spare time and on your own, a book that gives copious examples, and motivates the subject from many angles, is much more useful.
Visual complex analysis is a shining example of this kind of writing http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198534469/103-9283683-9227825?v=glance&n=283155
I lived my whole life as some form of Christian or another. Went to Catholic schools as a kid, became "born again" at 18, went to a pentecostal/evangelical Bible college.
By age 45, I had to objectively acknowledge that Christianity didn't ever perform as had been promised. There was no evidence that I was better off for having been devoutly, obnoxiously religious, and a whole lot of evidence that I was worse off.
I had also long ago realized that Christian "science" was all reactionary stuff that was more about poking holes than actually proving anything. If science was so vacuous, we wouldn't be using computers and flying to the moon and whatnot. So I picked up a book by a geologist showing why the evidence is against Noah's flood, and I read it to understand rather than to poke holes. It blew me away.
From there, I started reading all sorts of science, and scholarly criticisms of the Bible, and it was pretty much the end for me. I realized how much effort I had to put into maintaining faith (a huge amount!), and it all just crumbled.
Ingenious Mechanisms: (Four Volume Set) (Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers & Inventors) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0831110848/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bS12DbGBA5SPC
https://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming
>tl;dr recommend me a book
https://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Program your calculators now and practice practice practice. I liked surveying solved problems as a tool to study.
To add to this, always have a personal goal of improvement. Something about yourself you are improving.
The easiest thing to do is study for your job or future job. Once a week should be spent improving your professional life. This could mean going to conferences, seminars, or society meetings, but it could also simply mean sitting down and reading "Never Eat Alone" before going to bed.
The monotony of work isn't so bad when you can look back every month and know you are better than you were.
For example, my last goal was "Lose 25 pounds", I did it in a couple of months. The goal before that was "Buy a house." My current goal is studying a specific book for work. The next one is improving my handwriting.
The thing about the goals though, is they cannot simply be thrown away, they must be things that stay with you. So here are my goals again, but with small things that stick with me:
I've included Amazon links as I could find them. The three reference guides I have are:
I also think reference books for the FE and PE exams would be helpful.
This is a good book for you to start: An Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics: The Finite Volume Method
You will find the definition of some terms and how the different models work. I think it is important for you to get acquaintance with RANS equations. If I can suggest you one more thing it is to look for an publication of a similar work, even if the focus is different than yours, you can find some tips of how to run your simulations.
This book might be up your alley.
> Basically that things aren't great, but they aren't catastrophic either, and that we actually are kind of on the right path, or at least a path good enough that we'd 'only' heat the planet up another 2-3deg in the next 50 years instead of the near fatal ~8deg statistics I've seen. We could be doing a much better job as a species, but we'll still be OK.
There's a book on global warming, Six degrees. It has six chapters, one for each degree of warming. There's no need for a seventh chapter because there won't be any humans left in that scenario. According to the book, if we exceed +3°C, industrial agriculture will collapse (more or less quickly, depending on the region), and billions will starve.
We're currently on the trajectory for a warming of roughly +3.4°C. I imagine that the despair that comes with the early consequences will push down this path down to something like +2.8°C. Still, the lives of roughly five billion people are very insecure on that path. That's apocaplyptic enough for me.
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-War-Invasive-Species-Permaculture/dp/160358563X
Walter Block - Privatization of Roads and Highways
>Taxes are necessary to ensure unlimited free-use of certain properties. In a free-market, who paves the roads and who owns them?
There's lots of literature out there in regard to private road systems. Walter Block wrote a whole book about it a few years ago:
http://www.amazon.com/Privatization-Roads-Highways-Walter-Block/dp/193355004X
I always think its funny that, when debating libertarians, the thing people first jump to defend and are most concerned about is road building. I think most libertarians would be perfectly content living in a society in which the government did nothing but build roads.
>A government which charges only as much as it needs to maintain a public structure is preferable to a company who can charge any amount and also randomly change policy, in regards to access.
If a private company charges an unfair price, you can choose a different company. The only recourse we have to a government entity that charges too much is jail.
And you think government entities don't "randomly change policy"?
>The only problem is reality. People are going to do shady things, especially when no one is there to tell them "no".
This is the exact reason why I oppose the state.
http://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580478/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348090449&sr=8-1&keywords=loudspeaker+cookbook
> Well, where do you think roads and all the other infrastructure your rely on comes from?
If you have 30min please listen to what Walter Block has to say about roads: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XUA4h8ctNWM
If you prefer reading:
Bruhn, Niu, Roark and Niu (again) are the bibles for aerospace structures. Bruhn is always ridiculously expensive but it's hard to beat. Not sure why they won't put another edition out, everyone uses it.
Best way to learn FEA is by doing. Taking a class to understand the theory is very helpful (in my opinion). Gives the user a deeper insight into how the model is working - especially how the nodal DOFs of each type element work. Making models in "one button push" FE packages like Solidworks or ProMechanica is only so helpful. Building the models by hand or creating your own programs is the best way to develop an understanding.
If you are motivated, here is a good class with all the chapters and notes online.
A mark's handbook will probably get you started --
http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers-Edition/dp/0071428674/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398184423&sr=8-1&keywords=mark%27s+handbook
This what I’m hoping for Christmas if you want to get me it that’ll be great!
Marks standard handbook for mechanical engineers
Mark's Standard Handbook is basically every MechE textbook crammed into 1. It is pretty expensive, but a PDF can be found with some googling.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0071428674/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1418950920&sr=8-1&dpPl=1&dpID=51X0PIIJgKL&ref=plSrch&pi=AC_SY200_QL40
Get yourself a student edition of some Autodesk products - AutoCad and Inventor at the least - to practice CAD and drafting skills.
Some books about Mech Eng specifically:
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-Sourcebook-Edition/dp/0071704426
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Machines-How-They-Work/dp/0486217094
http://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Formulas-Kurt-Gieck/dp/0071457747
http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-Devices/dp/0486443604
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Engineering-Principles-John-Bird/dp/0415517850
Don't forget about basic electricity, electronics, hydraulics and pneumatics too.
Get some hands-on experience with machine tools such as lathes and mills. Learn how to program CNC machines using G-code. Try to land a summer job at a factory or assembly plant for the experience. Learn how to make metal castings by watching some YouTube videos and visiting a local foundry.
Find some local ASME members to network with and seek a mentor. ASME also offers a limited free membership to college freshmen.
Mechanical engineer, here. There is no substitute for actually building something, which it seems you're already doing. Outside of coursework and training, I would recommend the following resources:
FUNdaMENTALS of Design: You can download the PDF here. Tons of pictures and equations. This was the "course book" I used in undergrad @ MIT, and you can get it for free! Not really organized, per se, but one cool thing about it is that it's meant to be flipped through and printed double-sided. One side is always a birds-eye or holistic view, and the opposite side is always an in-depth and theoretical treatment of the topics. This is a great way to find out, "Wow! This exists, and here's what it's called!"
Mechanical Engineering Design: This is a pretty good primer on mechanical "stuff."
Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook: This is a great resource to keep handy. I look at this ALL the time, especially when I hit brick walls and need inspiration or fresh ideas.
Misumi: Pretty good place to get industrial-grade mechanical components... not sure about the prices for hobby-level stuff. They also have some good literature and tutorials here.
Hope it helps, and feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Edit: primary != primer
I have this book and I love it
https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-Sourcebook-5th/dp/0071704426/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542986124&sr=8-1&keywords=mechanisms
I second Bruhn, also going to throw Roark's out there.
Pick up the book Visual Complex Analysis by Tristan Needham. You can probably find a free copy online, but this one is, I assure you, worth every penny. Not only is it the most intuitive book on complex analysis ever written in my opinion; it is probably among the very best mathematical books in general.
Let me put it this way. I happened upon that book in high school and was so captivated that I read it cover to cover. Upon entering college, my understanding of the subject was so strong and intuitive I could jump into graduate-level complex analysis with little to no difficulty.
Complex analysis, my friend. If you can understand even the basics intuitively it can smooth out a lot of the higher classes. I like Needham's Visual Complex Analysis but I've been told it's not a good introduction. I'm not really sure what would be, but you might want to look at Introductory Complex Analysis by Silverman (Dover books are cheap and awesome).
Graph theory certainly wouldn't be too bad either. It's actually pretty fun and has applications in programming and algorithms. Dover publishes this book which I expect would be excellent to read at work (pretty basic, moves slowly). Same goes for linear algebra if you can find a book on it (look for one with "matrix analysis" in the title).
Learning advanced set theory or category theory will probably not be useful at all. (*ducks*).
Neither of those is the complex plane. The first is 3-dimensional in the real manifold sense and the latter is 4-dimensional.
It seems that you are confused about what the complex plane is, so I would suggest that you read Needham's Visual Complex Analysis. It's a very gentle introduction to complex analysis that also conveys very good visual intuition for what is going on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affine_transformation
https://www.math.tamu.edu/~stecher/LinearAlgebraPdfFiles/chapterThree.pdf
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/linear-algebra/matrix-transformations/linear-transformations/v/linear-transformations
A linear time-invariant circuit system is a linear system. You can represent it as a linear matrix - which is what SPICE does to solve circuits: V = Z I or I = Z^(-1) V.
An affine transform is merely a form of linear matrix transformation that has particular constraints on its elements that cause it to be "affine". Without more information this makes no sense to do on a circuit but maybe there's a case I don't know about.
There are issues with general circuit representation in this form so systems like SPICE do NOT use these in this form but in a combined matrix form (so you can have zero or infinite values of V or I or Z without blowing things up).
A really, really amazing book on linear transformations and how they tie to complex math is Tristan Needham's Visual Complex Analysis.
If you've ever been fascinated by circuit theory with regards to linear algebra, Fourier transforms, Euler's Identity, Stability Analysis, etc., and wanted to understand the underlying math better, this is the book to read. It's easy to read but has plenty of rigor. Also highly relevant to graphics transformations used in GPUs.
Saff and Snider is great for applied complex analysis. In my opinion it strikes a perfect balance between accessibility and rigor for a first course on the subject.
Visual Complex Analysis is another good choice, but it might be a little more advanced than what you're interested in.
The first half of Lang might also be a good choice, but Lang takes a slightly more formal, proof-based approach.
I've also skimmed through Brown and Churchill, which looks quite good but is prohibitively expensive.
Finally, you can find many cheap (~$10) books on the subject by Dover. The only one I've looked at is Knopp, which is quite formal and light on computation, but might be a good supplement. Here's another Dover book with outstanding Amazon reviews.
Complex analysis is both very elegant and very useful. Best of luck with your class!
Quantum Computing Since Democritus by Scott Aaronson.
A Friendly Introduction to Number Theory by Silverman.
Visual Complex Analysis by Needham.
I haven't read it, but your claim checks out. Amazon 59 reviews, 4.5 out of 5 stars average
The mixing part is the same. If you are solely the FOH mixer, and you don't want to be in charge of the bigger picture, you have no concerns - just make it sound good and know the consoles you are working on. The system tech is there to make sure that the rig sounds good everywhere in the room, and the PM and riggers are there to make sure it is run and hung safely and efficiently.
If you want to PM on bigger rigs like that, you need to start learning the details of all those people's jobs - not necessarily so you can tell them what to do, but so that you can spot safety issues and inefficiencies, and work hand-in-hand with them to meet your goals.
Here's a good book to start on power: https://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Entertainment-Electrician-Technician-Richard/dp/0415714834
And here is a good book on audio systems: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415731011/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I haven't read this one on networks yet, but it's probably my next read...maybe others can chime in on wether it is a good one.
https://www.amazon.com/Show-Networks-Control-Systems-Entertainment/dp/0692958738/ref=asc_df_0692958738/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312115090752&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=449842820588414772&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9061129&hvtargid=pla-415287733133&psc=1
​
And of course, nothing beats experience, so weasel your way into bigger jobs and watch what everyone is doing.
​
Look at Sound Systems Design & Optimization If you're looking for theory behind how sound systems work.
I have two recommendations:
http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Scientists-Engineers-Mathematics/dp/048667620X/
This is an excellent survey that saved my bacon as a physics BS student transitioning to graduate PDE in math. The text is clear and divided into easily consumable lectures. It's also available for $10, a bargain.
http://www.amazon.com/Partial-Differential-Equations-Action-Universitext/dp/8847007518
This is the book I would recommend as a "second pass" through PDE. If you pursue the subject as a graduate student, this will give you information necessary as you transition to applying real analysis and basic functional analysis ideas to solving PDEs. It has a very holistic approach, but uses a lot of ideas and tools that I didn't see until graduate school. It's a great self-study (but definitely higher level than Farlow), and would be an excellent book to convince your graduate level PDE teacher to give a two semester course from(assuming they were of a more cooperative disposition).
Just get yourself a copy of this and celebrate with beer.
As another option, a relatively easy-to-read book is Farlow's book on PDEs for Scientists and Engineers. It breaks up a bunch of PDE topics (everything from the Heat Equation to perturbation methods) into short lessons using a relatively informal, non-rigorous approach. I'd highly recommend it for beginners and for those who'd like a quick overview of the applications of PDEs to areas in Physics/Engineering.
Shigley is good. Free if you google hard enough.
Machinerys Handbook is the Bible( get an older edition or e-version to save money). Might be able to fing it free online with good enough google-fu.
These are great too Ingenious Mechanisms: (Four Volume Set) (Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers & Inventors) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0831110848/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JKLzCbREGJJW9
Again get used or e-version.
I highly recommend Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers & Inventors by Franklin Jones. It's about $120, but it is a four-volume set of hardcover books. I have it and I love it.
While you're on that page check out the "frequently bought together" links, there are some interesting titles there. I haven't actually read any of them, but they look interesting.
Someone mentioned 507 movements which is really good. Also if you want something a little more detailed, the book Ingenious Mechanisms is pretty good as well.
I can't give you numbers, although others have made such attempts. There is a book available called Six Degrees that attempts to describe the impacts of climate change over 100 years at different levels (1 degree C change; 2 degree C change; etc.). It has numbers, although I can't suggest how accurate they are (those kinds of numerical forecasting exercises are virtually impossible to do with accuracy in complex systems).
Another pop-science but seemingly sound exploration of likely effects (and current conditions) is Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Friedman. It definitely has a "position," but it is a good qualitative place to start if you want an entryway into global environmental change dynamics.
I'm a climate change natalist - I recognize that civilization is over and humanity might be too. Our grandkids won't have electricity and may not have agriculture. Our great-gradkids may not have enough oxygen. Anyways given the coming crash I had a kid that I'm raising to make it through the bottleneck with good wholesome values intact. I'm raising her competent and co-operative.
If you're feeling down about working retail you should read this book. It's about the expected results of each degree of climate warming. It's 10 years old. The changes predicted here are actually mild compared to the changes we've seen, suggesting that we may be on track for a 4° warmer world (mass extinction, complete desertion of the mid-latitudes, the amazon first burning then drying to a desert, human fight toward the poles, endemic drought throughout asia, most crop-land blowing away as dust). Capitalism can't survive that!!
Climate change is a matter of degrees, literally, and the big unknown is at what point do we really start to suffer negative consequences.
Scientists and world leaders so far have a consensus that 2 degrees Celsius is safe. Some scientists say it should be even lower, but that's what most of the negotiations are assuming. 3-4 degrees Celsius is likely what's going to happen unless we make some real aggressive moves soon, which will most likely exacerbate some of the things we see already, which are sea level rises, ocean acidification (leading to fish extinctions), melting of the ice caps and glaciers, and weather changes (drought, desertification, melting tundra). 6 degrees is where most people think we're headed if we can't get our act together and there are a whole bunch of hypotheses about what may happen then: http://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853 . Of course, then there's always the risk of runaway climate change, where we reach a point where warming begets more warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_climate_change and we eventually end up like Venus, although that particular outcome is still up for debate.
So to your point, is this all a futile exercise? I'm not sure we can hit 2 degrees, honestly, at this point. But if we hit 3, the earth our grand children (speaking as someone without kids yet) will live most of their lives in will most likely be similar to the one we live in and the one our parents live in. If we let it get to 5 or 6, then all bets are off. You might be right that they'll come up with some kind of Manhattan project to solve it, but there's no guarantee.
Read the CERM cover to cover. Do the illustrated sample problems in each section. Tab that sucker. Find sample tests - take them every few weeks on a weekend morning at 8 am just like the test. Buy ear plugs, wear them when testing (no airbuds or music).
If you can swing it, buy a few practice problem books. I found this one very simple and helpful for the morning problems - Mike's Civil PE Exam Guide: Morning Session https://www.amazon.com/dp/1453716343/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Wc0.zb2XHGVHB
Good Luck!
For the CERM I kept each chapter a different color (water - blue, geotech - orange, transportation - green, etc). Working through enough practice exams I got pretty quick identifying what I needed where. I tabbed anything that helped me while taking a practice exam. I'd tab on the side. You should buy Mike's practice exam. https://www.amazon.com/Mikes-Civil-PE-Exam-Guide/dp/1453716343
That'll give you a start for tabbing.
Buy her this:
http://www.eetusa.com/civil-pe-catalog
And this:
https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Engineering-Reference-Manual-Exam/dp/1591265088
This is pretty much all you need to pass.
On my first MechE internship, I was working out the stresses on a vacuum chamber by hand to approx double-check the FEA results. An hour into it, my boss walked by and found out what I was doing.
"If you're using calculus, you're doing it wrong," and handed me a Roark handbook.
His comment was overly simplistic, but very representative of engineer's view on the matter. We don't have time to work out the theory, we need that vacuum chamber done by tomorrow morning.
You can look for an old copy of Mark's Handbook. This is a handy guide to pretty much everything to do with mechanical engineering.
Marks Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers
So good. Fascinating. Put it this way: if you don't end-up loving (loving!) this book, then Mech certainly isn't for you. So worst case scenario, this is a cheap way to find that out.
I've worked with some designers who had books like these:
Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices
[507 Mechanical Movements and Designs]
(https://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-Devices/dp/0486443604/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1484237480&sr=8-2&keywords=mechanisms)
Honestly though, these books might be good bathroom reading, but design comes down to experience. The more problems you solve, and the more things you make, the better your designs will be.
Having been a design engineer for a while now, the absolute best advice I can give you is to talk to the other people who will be using the stuff you design. Starting out, your designs aren't going to be the most elegant. Focus on getting something that is functional.
Then, talk to the machinist who is making the parts. He'll have some advice on what features are difficult to machine, or some features you could include that make your parts easier to manufacture, such as adding a flat surface to use as a datum for machining setups, or "bonus holes" that can be used for lifting or securing the parts on the machine. Maybe if you loosen some tolerances, he can order a piece of mill standard pipe instead of having to hog out a huge piece of round stock. Maybe if you tweak the geometry just a little bit, the part can be made on a manual machine instead of having to wait for the 5 axis CNC to open up.
Talk to the techs who have to operate or maintain the machines. What makes their jobs difficult? They'll know best what parts are hard to access, or which tightly packed assemblies don't have clearances to fit tools in, or what's constantly breaking and needs to be replaced often. They'll show you the "custom made tools" that they improvise so that they can actually work with your equipment.
Talk to the people in procurement, or your suppliers and vendors. Is there cheaper hardware you could use? Maybe switching materials would make it easier to source raw stock. Maybe there's an off-the-shelf coupling you could use instead of machining a custom bracket to join two components. These guys work with lots of other people in your industry, and will gladly share "how the other guy did it".
Well the whole field of what you are delving into is categorized as Kinematics and Dynamics, which is enormous.
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There are very many types of mechanical devices designed by various people throughout the world which can accomplish what you need.
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Many of them could be applied to your system and only you can fully determine what the "best" one is, depending on your requirements.
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This is a nice book to look through for ideas:
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https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-Sourcebook-5th/dp/0071704426/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2CRBTTO3RT6RC&keywords=mechanisms+and+mechanical+devices+sourcebook&qid=1557683532&s=gateway&sprefix=mechanisms+and+mechanical+%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-1
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As far as calculating things, it's extremely difficult without some knowledge of math and a little experience in applying said math to your design. This is pretty hard to do without formal education of at least the basics of these fields.
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For example, do you know how to isolate the elements of your design and draw a free body diagram of each of them, without making logical errors (which are pretty easy to do by the way).
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This is a basic engineering design method you need to use to perform calculations on your proposed designs. I don't think it could be well explained through a forum post. It would go much faster by having somebody help you out in person, or if you can do this, pick up an engineering book and read the relevant sections carefully so you understand them enough to apply them. This tool is initially learned in the fields of Statics, so you'd need a Statics book first. Then you'd need a Kinematics and Dynamics book to determine forces due to acceleration.
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Looking briefly at your design, my first impression is that it can work. However, make sure that the linkage attached to the servo and the push rod and control horn never fully go parallel to each other. If that happens, you have no guarantee that the mechanism will return to its original proper position.
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I can explain with a very disturbing analogy. Imagine your elbow can rotate 180 degrees so you can bend your arm backward fully, and for our sake, lets also imagine that this is totally normal and is not damaging.
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Now imagine you are holding your arm straight against a wall so that the two linkages of your arm, the (1) forearm part and (2) bicep part are in alignment.
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When you push against the wall, will your arm bend one way, or the other way? The arm has three options, depending on minute and uncontrollable differences: (1) If the force is perfectly horizontal your arm will not move at all and will continue to push against the wall (2) the forearm moves "up" and bends as normal and (3) the forearm moves "down" and bends backwards.
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The same will happen in linkages if the they all line up. Since we want the linkage to always move the way we want it to move, we have to prevent this special position form occurring.
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That's a common problem that people who have never designed linkages easily run into.
I use this one a lot for inspiration when I need to design new mechanisms.
https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-Sourcebook-5th/dp/0071704426
Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook might be nice.
Its like a museum of mechanisms. I like the 2nd Edition cover for a "coffee table book".
I have the Mechanisms and Mechanical Devices Sourcebook, Amazon. I have the fourth edition, but the link is the fifth. It's a good book showing how to design them and has a ton of examples.
For a stress guy, in addition to the previously mentioned Bruhn, All three of Niu's books are worthwhile.
as well as:
Roark's
Peterson's
Have a look at/into:
Good suggestion regarding #1 and #2, especially #1. I use my copy of the Machinery's Handbook regularly as a lookup reference; it's invaluable.
I'd add to the list Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain. If you want to have either it as a reference and/or you don't know/don't trust your math, this gives you the formula for pretty much anything you need, mechanically. I use this habitually when designing anything beyond the trivial to double check my numbers. It has generalized/normalized formulas for stress, strain, deflection, vibration ,etc for beams, plates, shells, and the like. Oh, and the newer versions have the formula modifiers for solving in both metric and imperial units. If you are doing mechanical design work, this has a place next the the Machinery's Handbook.
Cheers,
The stock answers are Roark's if it was full of equations, or Shigley's if it was full of diagrams.
Maybe Machinery Handbook, but it doesn't sound like it.
I lost my 6th version and recently bought the 8th. I don't know where you're shopping, but it's under $100 on Amazon. Even the list price is only $135. Are you looking at the gold plated collectors edition?
Book of proof is a more gentle introduction to proofs then How to Prove it.
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No bullshit guide to linear algebra is a gentle introduction to linear algebra when compared to the popular Linear Algebra Done Right.
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An Illustrated Theory of Numbers is a fantastic introduction book to number theory in a similar style to the popular Visual Complex Analysis.
Here is an actual blog post that conveys the width of the text box better. Here is a Tufte-inspired LaTeX package that is nice for writing papers and displaying side-notes; it is not necessary for now but will be useful later on. To use it, create a tex file and type the following:
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tufte-latex}
\begin{document}
blah blah blah
\end{document}
But don't worry about it too much; for now, just look at the Sample handout to get a sense for what good design looks like.
I mention AoPS because they have good problem-solving books and will deepen your understanding of the material, plus there is an emphasis on proof-writing when solving USA(J)MO and harder problems. Their community and resources tabs have many useful things, including a LaTeX tutorial.
Free intro to proofs books/course notes are a google search away and videos on youtube/etc too. You can also get a free library membership as a community member at a nearby university to check out books. Consider Aluffi's notes, Chartrand, Smith et al, etc.
You can also look into Analysis with intro to proof, a student-friendly approach to abstract algebra, an illustrated theory of numbers, visual group theory, and visual complex analysis to get some motivation. It is difficult to learn math on your own, but it is fulfilling once you get it. Read a proof, try to break it down into your own words, then connect it with what you already know.
Feel free to PM me v2 of your proof :)
Visual Complex Analysis looks interesting, haven't read it yet.
You might like this book by Coxeter, who also co-wrote Geometry Revisited. Tristan Needham covers a bit of non-Euclidean geometry in Visual Complex Analysis. Really though I believe non-Euclidean geometry isn't a discipline of its own; it's part of differential geometry, so you might be better served looking for differential geometry references.
Part of the problem is that there are a lot of little things that are subtly wrong, and I'm sorry if this sounds patronizing, but it's because you're still ignorant of the larger theory. Let's take a few statements.
> Trigonometry is not the same as geometry by any means,
Trigonometry is the branch of mathematics that studies relationships between lengths and triangles. If it is not geometry, I do not know what is.
Now I think that people are being suckered into these statements because they associate the manipulation of sin/cos/tan as functional quantities. So they start thinking that this is not geometry because it involves purely algebraic manipulation of functions. Which is absurd. What do you think the graph of sin/cos/tan comes from?
It reminds me of a student who once had to punch into her calculator the value of sin(0). If you understand the origin of the definition of sine, you understand its value at the origin.
> especially the trigonometry used in electrical engineering (where it's really about complex exponentials, eiθ = cosθ + isinθ).
The notion of a complex exponential (typically) requires the notion of geometry in the complex plane. I say (typically) because there are different ways of defining the complex function. For example, you can define it as the addition of two separate infinite series that make up the real and imaginary parts. However you define it, you won't escape the notion that it is linked to points on the unit circle. This is geometry.
Tristan Needham basically claims (around Chapter 1) that the importance of complex numbers in many scientific pursuits is based on the fact that it is effectively equivalent to the definition of Euclidean Geometry. Hence again geometry.
> Electrical engineers aren't using trig to represent geometry, but to represent oscillations
Again, where are these oscillations coming from? They are defined via ratios of side lengths in a triangle as a point is rotated around the unit circle. This is geometry.
> Also, they're used in Fourier transforms and series - also completely unrelated to geometry.
A Fourier series is defined via an expansion of certain functions into more basic components of sines and cosines. The reason why you are able to do this boils down to geometric extensions of the notion of orthogonality and projections. Basically, the individual modes are orthogonal to each other (except their twin), and by projecting things in a judicious manner, you can derive formulae on the Fourier coefficients. Projections and orthogonality...this is geometry. What functions can or can't be Fourier summed? This relates to notions of continuity, differentiability, integrality, and periodicity. All of these, in the case of Fourier Series, are intimately linked to circles and ratios of side lengths.
As I pointed out in another post, the definition of Fourier transform inversion requires contour integration in the complex plane. Where do you think all those tables Engineers use are taken from? Contour integration is geometry. It involves notions of decomposing line segments and curves into sub-elements, integrating over circles and arcs, etc. Hell, even integration is geometry. If you can't figure out what area means, then how do you define the concept of an integral?
The problem is that students lose this geometric understanding of mathematics. Then you have to explain to them what happens when you actually integrate, or why an integral they calculated is obviously positive or negative based on the parity or sign of the function.
Check out Visual Complex Analysis by T. Needham . This covers complex analysis in a very original and vivid way!
I heard good things about it, but honestly as an applied mathematician I found its table of contents too lackluster. Its coverage appears to be in a weird spot between "for physicists" and "for mathematicians" and I don't know who its target audience is. I think the standard recommendation for classical mechanics from the physics side is Goldstein, which is a perfectly good book with plenty of math!
For an actual mathematicians' take on classical mechanics, you'll have to wait until you take more advanced math, namely real analysis and differential geometry. Common references are Spivak and Tu. When you have that background, I think Arnold has the best mathematical treatment of classical mechanics.
I've glanced through Taylor and it is a bit low, but I might give it a chance again. I was thinking of a book like http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Classical-Mechanics-Graduate-Mathematics/dp/0387968903 but it's too mathematically sophisticated for me right now. Any other recommendations for a grad level book?
A really fascinating book about the history of geology (with a focus on how much of it was shaped in relation to a cultural belief in the Noachian Flood) is The Rocks Don't Lie
Can't recommend it enough. It really puts modern flood geology in perspective.
I really enjoyed "Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood", which I don't think I've ever seen mentioned here (I only heard about it myself because it was a local author).
It's been a while since I read it, but what I remember enjoying was how the religious beliefs of our earliest geologists influenced their understanding of what they were discovering in the field. The early explorers set out to find evidence for Noah's flood, so it was amusing seeing them trying to wrap their heads around things like finding mammoths in Siberia, that were obviously washed away in the deluge!
I've not read it myself, but I really enjoyed the Your Inner Fish documentary series and have been reading to pick this one up.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011
Set up the guitar so it's coming in orange... In general, yes, this is what you're doing to all inputs. An example of when not to do this might be if you know a musician will get hit with adrenaline and play twice as loud during the show as they might at soundcheck.
A caveat: signal coming in nice and hot at your preamp will NOT optimize your signal to noise ratio if you compensate by turning your output faders way down. This still means your PA will amplify however much Johnson noise is contributed by your mixer. Run your faders at unity, but turn down your PA if necessary. I know I've said it before but so many people refuse to follow this practice that it makes my head spin.
Methinks you went to school for this... Nope! My formal training in sound amounts to a two-day lecture on system optimization using Smaart.
I work in IT, so part of this is very similar to what I do. Awesome! I'm working on my Network+ certification right now. Being able to set up a reliable LAN for your PA control/monitoring is a requirement for professionals these days. I rarely put more than 20 devices on network, but I want to make sure I'm ready for the phone call asking me to do something ten times bigger. A lot of IT people I know (my father among them) are fantastic autodidacts thanks to a career of keeping up with the newest technology, so you likely have what it takes if you're interested enough to put in the work here.
Are there online resources for system optimization? Well, yes, there are always online resources. I'm sure there are some regulars on this sub who can direct you to some, but I can't offhand. Personally, and for most people you'd ask, the best resource for this is Bob McCarthy's book on the subject. Not an online resource, but you'd be selling yourself short if you didn't read it from the man who started it all.
Black Book first
Yellow Book Second
Green Book Third
The first two can be found on Half.com quite often for cheap, the third is a new edition and worth the money.
Newer edition is actually cheaper!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0415731011/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile
I have these two text books on PDE's
https://www.amazon.com/Partial-Differential-Equations-Bleecker-University/dp/1571460365
https://www.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Scientists-Engineers-Mathematics/dp/048667620X/
The second book is more of a stereotypical cook-book math text. Idk if that's what you're looking for or not but it's inexpensive anyways and does a good job for its purpose.
The first textbook is very well done and is for beginners. However right now it's on the expensive side but when I bought it it was only 30 dollars. So if you wait a little bit the price may drop.
Also one last comment about the first textbook is that the order of the topics is abnormal. The first chapter does a summary of ODE which makes sense. However the first PDE material in the book covers first order PDE's which in my experience is not normal. Usually when people first learn PDE they learn about the heat and wave equations which are second-order PDE's. Idk if you care but I thought I'd just comment on that.
Check out Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers by Stanley Farlow. I've recommended it to another engineer in the past and he seemed to find it useful.
I used this book for my PDE class. It's meant to be supplemented with notes, but it does a decent job explaining material on it's own. That and it's super cheap for a math book.
Note that it has several errors in the answer key.
Any machine design book should give you the basics. I really like The 4 volume set of Ingenious Mechanisms. Thousands of examples of mechanisms and they give you the real world applications for each.
Please pick up and read:
http://www.amazon.com/Six-Degrees-Future-Hotter-Planet/dp/1426203853
Or watch it. Goodness... they made it into film:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1224519/
The cool thing about this book is that the focus is on what we can tell happened at these temps at various points in the past. This doesn't give us a clear picture of the future. Indeed, the rate of change today is practically unprecedented. But this look into the past is rather illuminating.
4 degrees is BAD! As others have stated, it's not a simple thing of every part of the world just magically being 4 degrees warmer all the time. It won't be that uniform. There will be parts that get larger average temp increases than others.
There are simply far too many people who think they've stopped being Climate Change Deniers while remaining in incredible ignorance of the related facts. Getting more informed will address the confusion, if not necessarily the fear. I'm not trying to advocate anything here related to vegetarianism, tap water or whatever. It just will be more conducive overall the more people have a better grasp of the issues/data here.
I didn't make one actually.
But I suggest buying all three versions (A, B, C) of the PE Prepared Breadth workbooks Link as well as the two versions (A, B) for Water Resources Depth.
In addition to that I did Mike's workbook which was really good for the breadth section.
Lastly I did the NCEES practice exam to get a feel for the actual test, which proved to be useful.
This guy's tips were extremely helpful and everything he said was entirely true:
https://medium.com/@kolkena/six-tips-to-pass-the-civil-pe-exam-breadth-section-56304405be5
As you work through all those problems, tab the heck out of your CERM. You can be sloppy with the tabbing at first and then at the end of all your studying, maybe a week before the exam go back through and re-tab everything nice so it cascades, etc. I LIVED in the CERM during the test. Even though I made two 3-ring binders containing all my example problems, I did not use them at all. The CERM was my go-to.
Also, the sub-topics that I felt weren't addressed enough in the PE practice books were some of the more intricate open channel stuff i.e. hydraulic jumps, drops, conjugate depths, alternate depths, culvert flow types, etc. so make sure you deep dive in that stuff too. I went into the test thinking "I know Manning's really well so I'll be fine" - wrong. There is much more to open channels than that one equation. And like that guide says, know the CONCEPTS behind things. What IS hydraulic radius? We know it's cross-sectional flow over wetted perimeter but what does that mean? Why is it important? - Well, it's an indicator of flow efficiency; how much of the channel flow is affected by friction because it's a ratio essentially of how much flow you're getting vs. how much of the flow is in contact with the channel walls (friction).
They want to make sure you aren't just a plug and chug machine and that you understand the principles. It is called the Principles and Practices of Engineering exam for a reason. Good luck.
The below books are what I used for lots of practice problems (I am Civil Transpo based), I did practiced timed tests for both AM and PM. I also changed the same problems to solve for the opposite it was asking, to try and match any variation the PE can throw at you. They were very helpful and about the right difficulty.
a) Civil Engineering PE Practice Exams: 2 Full Breadth Exams
b) Mike's Civil PE Exam Guide: Morning Session
c) Civil PE Practice Exam: Breadth Exam Version B
d) Transportation Depth Practice Exams for the Civil PE Exam
https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Review-Manual-Michael-Lindeburg/dp/1591264391/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467983879&sr=8-1&keywords=fe+civil+review+manual
Buy the best condition used one you can find! I got mine for like $75 and it's brand new.
The popular books seem to be:
Lindeburg FE Review Manual: nice if you want short concise information about each subject and topic. I hear the practice problems book are a bit harder than the exam but good prep all the same.
PPI 600 Q and A: I've been using it and like it but having the solution directly under the question makes it cumbersome trying to not see the answer when you the flip the page. Still a decent book but there are some mistakes.
Anthem Publishing Exam Book: seems similar to the NCEES Practice Exam. I bought it cause it was recommended and I wanted a another practice exam.
Bottom line the FE Reference Handbook 9.4 from NCEES, knowing your calculator, and a couple practice question books should get you where you need to be.
So one of the huge things I did was before I even started practice problems I watched Marshall University lectures on most of the subjects. The lectures were from a FE review class and the teacher would step through practice problems and where the exact equations were. The most helpful ones were probably the math and probability ones where he would explain how you could pump out most of them using calculator functions in 30 seconds. Here's a link to the series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCV9OyAY5K-VOJjVCbvlDpvni2n3dG7jl
After watching all of these I then did the diagnostic exams for all sections from this book and did more practice problems if I felt I needed it.https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Review-Manual-Michael-Lindeburg/dp/1591264391
Something that also helped was I used a ABC format of studying. So section A was subjects I was confident I could answer a large majority correct. B were subjects I would probably nail like 60% of the time, and C's were kinda crap shoots.
Lindeburg book is very good. Also use the NCEES practice exam. Lucky you that geotech is a big portion of the exam. For extra help on cross over topics like math, stat, statics, dynamics, economic, mech of mats, materials, ethics you can use mech/other discipline books to get more review.
I'm an aero engineer and not a CivE, but I did take the general-discipline EIT exam after college and I can tell you that it's as easy as everyone says. If you've been working with a construction company and have an engineering mentor, you could probably study ~200 hours with a companion such as Lindeburg's FE Civil Review Manual and pass the exam. Obviously YMMV depending on how good you are with math and critical thinking skills, but the caliber of the FE/EIT exam is nowhere near the PE one.
As for a second Bachelors degree, it's never too late to get one and I highly encourage you to do it if that's what interests you and it's within your financial means to do so. When I was getting my B.S. in aerospace I went to school with dudes in their 30's and 40's (military vets) and they were able to succeed in getting their degree and compete with their younger peers in the job market. I'm a big advocate of community colleges because that's what I did before transferring to an engineering college.
Last but not least, our Frequently Asked Questions page has a lot of good information on Civil/Structural engineering so I would read some of the responses there to get a sense of what engineers do for work. Even though you've had some exposure to engineering, there's quite a bit of job variety and you should investigate what direction you want to head before doing it.
If you have any followup questions, the users here and in r/engineering are more than happy to answer them.
I'm in Texas too, and Oklahoma State University actually has online surveying courses you could take (pretty sure you can take those classes without having to get 'enrolled'). There's also a free CST Exam prep course online. Otherwise, Amazon has some good textbooks to check out (Elementary Surveying, Surveying Problems Solved, and Construction Surveying)!
Hope this helps. Feel free to message me if you have any questions/need any advice! I'm a student as well but I've been working at a surveying company for the last 5 years as an AutoCAD draftsperson. Might be able to help you with job hunting too (depending on which area of Texas you're in), if you need it!
That's like asking "how many different ways can you prepare, cook, and present a steak dinner".
One good read if you are curious in the "loud speaker design cook book" https://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580109
I remember literally wearing the cover off of that book back in the olden days..:)
I think this is the key right here. Roads are already paid for by major corporation through taxes on shipping. It is argued that were it not for government monopolization of roads that there would be 1) far fewer accidents. Today, "owners" of roads are not liable for problems related to the product. 2) something else. Why does it need to be roads per say? "Corporations" / businesses need goods transported reliably and safely. Walter Block believes thee is a good chance that had government not gotten involved the country would be covered in rail rather than roads.
But ultimately we can not KNOW how it would have evolved freely, we only know how it did evolve--violent coersion. It is always people that get things done when there are problems to be solved. Big things will always require many people cooperating to get them done. Government has simply appointed itself an authority in the approval to big projects. They have had so much influence and injected so much control over everything that "we" can't imagine doing anything without them.
Government doesn't create, it permits... once it has determined the cut of it they like.
I found this book on the subject very thought provoking and informative.
https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-War-Invasive-Species-Permaculture/dp/160358563X
Jeff Bagby has a good excel spreadsheet with baked-in formulas. However, it's difficult to use unless you have a good base understanding of what you're doing. Some good books to get you started are the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook and Speaker Building 201.
Keep in mind that it is absolutely necessary to have measurement equipment if you want to design anything and be able to point out what is wrong. Even if you have perfect pitch, actually quantifying what you're hearing in a speaker is really hard to do, and honestly can probably only come from lots of experience listening and then measuring to be able to recognize what is off.
Still, I recommend you just build an existing design.
>Simple trade transactions can get fucked up when one party provides false information about what they're selling, or doesn't provide what they promised
This is fraud, and can occur under any economic structure. The question of how to effectively punish/discourage it, in order to protect property rights, is a separate issue. You're confusing economic and political systems.
>or the transaction has effects on unrelated parties (think toxic waste), or when competition is impossible or detrimental (think roads or sewers).
You're talking about externalities and, in the case of roads, an unnecessary monopoly. Again, we can discuss which political system disposes of these matters in the most fair/equitable/efficient way, but this has nothing to do with trade.
>Anyone who says they have a simple solution -- whether it be "REGULATE REGULATE REGULATE" or "FREEDOM LIBERTY RON PAUL 08" -- is full of shit.
Every government intervention in trade funnels resources to where they would not be directed voluntarily, which by definition makes individuals worse off. This is epistemologically irrefutable, unless you believe that the government or another 3rd party knows your subjective valuation preferences (and can act on them) better than you.
You could use the mtx ones. It would get you over the crossover design, but you would still have to find a place for them in your design. Also, its hard to tell your design specifically, but it looks like the woofers are just attached to tubes. If thats the case, the woofers are going to be lacking a ton of base. In a proper enclosure, 5 1/2 in drivers could probably be expected to reach down to somewhere in the 50Hz range, possibly a little lower if you have the right set up. If I have your design correct, I would guess that your lowest bass would be somewhere up in the 150 - 200 Hz range, or right around the end of the human vocal spectrum. There would be no base below that and the speaker will sound very hollow.
This would be the reference I would send you to to get the information you need, but be warned that the information is very technically, it took me 2 - 3 reads to understand the information, and then go back and follow along with the calculations.
Loudspeaker Design Cookbook
Two very classic books. They're a touch dated, but acoustical physics haven't changed much.
Start with this one: amazon.com/Designing-Building-Testing-Speaker-Projects
Then read this: amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason
If you get through those a couple times, and muck around with the included (ancient) software, you'll be ready to build a damn clean set of speakers. And a very good start for all the bits and parts is: parts-express.com It's totally worth the work. Have fun!
Start with reading every thing you can find and then make informed decisions from there.
https://www.amazon.com/Loudspeaker-Design-Cookbook-Vance-Dickason/dp/1882580478/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468992574&sr=1-1&keywords=loudspeaker+design+cookbook+7th+edition
https://www.amazon.com/Speaker-Building-201-Comprehensive-Course/dp/1882580451/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468992780&sr=1-1&keywords=speaker+building
https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Building-Testing-Speaker-Projects/dp/007069429X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468992806&sr=1-2&keywords=speaker+building
Depends on the temperature. If at room temperature you don't need BPVC. All you will need is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-Warren/dp/007072542X
and the materials data safety sheet from your steel.
Machinery's Handbook
https://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-Large-Print-Oberg/dp/083113092X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519088516&sr=8-2&keywords=machinery%27s+handbook
Mark's Handbook
https://www.amazon.com/Marks-Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers/dp/0071428674/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519088467&sr=1-3&keywords=Mechanical+Engineering+handbook
Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers
https://www.amazon.com/Marks-Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers/dp/0071428674
Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers: has everything you would ever need, and more.
additionally check:
Stress : http://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-8th/dp/0071742476/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426174330&sr=8-1&keywords=roark%27s
Machinery: http://www.amazon.com/Machinerys-Handbook-29th-Erik-Oberg/dp/083112900X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1426174665&sr=8-3&keywords=Mechanical+Engineering+Handbook
General handbook:http://www.amazon.com/Marks-Standard-Handbook-Mechanical-Engineers/dp/0071428674/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426174463&sr=8-2&keywords=Mechanical+Handbook
and this source as a list of mech. engineering formulas to calculate and plot:
http://www.fxsolver.com/browse/?cat=4&formulas=on
https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-Sourcebook-5th/dp/0071704426
I just got this book a few weeks ago, it is full of awesome mechanisms.
Depends on the engineer. If you're into solid mechanics, there isn't a reason that you shouldn't own a copy of Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain.
http://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-8th/dp/0071742476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377448154&sr=1-1&keywords=roark%27s+formulas+for+stress+and+strain
Well...how in-depth do you want to get?
https://www.amazon.com/Structural-Shear-Joints-Analyses-Properties/dp/0791802388
https://www.amazon.com/Roarks-Formulas-Stress-Strain-8th/dp/0071742476
At the most fundamental level you're talking about fatigue, fracture mechanics, and the ole S-N curves. A certain aluminum will have a given Fty but over repeated cycles, even if you never near Fty, the metal will yield/crack.
Any geometric change (cutout, fastener hole, etc) causes a stress riser. An empty hole has a stress riser of 3. All of a sudden you dump 2000lbs of load into a fastener in that hole and you're compounding the stress. So it's better to gradually load up the material.
A quick and dirty calculation for this is the "fastener spring method" or "fastener spring stiffness model". Something like that. This is the basis for a lot of FEA models.
A lot of this is from trial and error. Like the cutouts for windows used to be square (with sharp corners) until half the fuselage got ripped off during a flight. Then they started making the inner corners of cutouts rounded.
I think if you google "aircraft durability and damage tolerance" you'll find some semi-detailed info. Although a lot of this will be about crack inspection, etc. some of it will be about repair guidelines/analysis.
These days a lot of fatigue analysis is done by Finite Element Analysis.
Roarks-Formulas for Stess and Strain
That book has endless examples of different geometry and load cases.
If you look at some existing examples, like here you'll see that they are basically a cone with a dome on the top and bottom.
Shells of Revolutions, Pressure Vessels, pipes are Chapter 13 in the Eighth Edition.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Computational-Fluid-Dynamics-Finite/dp/0131274988
This book is great for starting out. There are others more suited to aerodynamics but that book is a good starting point.
What book have you been using? My undergraduate course is using Brown & Churchill, which a lot of people seem to really like, and I've also heard really great things about Tristan Needham's Visual Complex Analysis and I've loved what I've seen of it (mostly just the chapter on winding numbers and the argument principle from a geometric viewpoint).
Congratulations are in order, to you as well as lysa_m, shizzy0 and all the other helpful redditors here. It must feel really great to get over this hurdle!
I just wanted to add a link to the book of Tristram Needham, Visual Complex Analysis. As lysa_m pointed out, you are not the first person in history to find "imaginary" numbers baffling. You can read the first 5 or 6 pages of Needham's book online at the Amazon page above. There he outlines the history of the subject and explains some of the same points made in the comments here.
For complex analysis, Visual Complex Analysis by Needham is often recommended along these lines. I haven't read it though, so I can't vouch for it.
What is the square root of i? If it takes you longer than .5 seconds to figure this in your head, you are blind.
You need to read visual complex analysis by Tristan Needham. This book utterly opened my eyes to what complex number actually are (hint: The correct question is "what is multiplication?"). I used to be mystified by them, as you are. No more. They are as unmystical as anything in math. I also gained a supreme ability to use them, in practice. Read the book, and you will join the ranks of the enlightened.
I recommend you to take a look at Visual Complex Analysis in particular the chapter on differentiation. In the first sections he explains the rationale for this restriction.
There are some great suggestions here, and I would include The Rocks Don't Lie.
It does a great job recounting the history of geology as the science evolved, and how it affected culture. I different take than the other suggestions, but certainly relevant and well worth the read.
The author is a well known geomorphology expert.
Sound System Engineering (Don Davis / Eugene Patronis / Pat Brown): https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-4e-Fourth/dp/0240818466/
Acoustic Absorbers & Diffusers (D'Antonio/Cox): https://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Absorbers-Diffusers-Theory-Application/dp/0415471745/
Sound Systems Design & Optimization (Bob McCarthy): https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011/
pdf:
https://www.sendspace.com/file/ny2ios
https://www.sendspace.com/file/xyoa7j
I like Partial Differential Equations for Scientists and Engineers.
My professor wrote this this book. It is excellent if you already have a memory of PDE's. It is also inexpensive.
That book is quite dry and abstract.
If you want more "why" and applications, try a book aimed at physicists or engineers.
Maybe this one for example
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Partial-Differential-Equations-Scientists-Engineers/dp/048667620X
I don't have any PDFs, but here is a good one you can get for pretty cheap. I used it as an undergrad and still refer back to it.
You might also try this Dover book.
Hope that helps.
I've used this one by Farlow in the past. It's got solutions to most of the common PDE's you'll find in other books, but it's a lot cheaper. It's also less formal than a lot of other books, which may be good or bad depending on your taste.
If you're looking for something that covers a bit more than just PDE's, O'Niel's book isn't too bad.
Graduate or undergraduate level?
If graduate, this is THE book to get.
This is much more applied.
Introduction to Robotics: Mechanics and Control by Craig (http://www.ashkanheydarian.com/images/introduction_to_robotics_mechanics_and_control_3rd_edition.pdf)
That will get you a good reference, good explanations of transformation matrices, etc. Examples and exercises use Matlab, which is pretty standard in industry for robot control development, at least in R&D. If you use python instead, its pretty easy to go back and forth.
If you can find a cheap copy of http://www.amazon.com/Ingenious-Mechanisms-Designers-Inventors/dp/0831110848, get it, its a pretty cool book. You can also google things like this, so it isn't essential, just a nice to have. When you are trying to figure out how to get a certain motion, chances are someone has already figured it out and you don't need to re-invent.
It is also essential to understand, on a deep level, how any sensors and A/D hardware you are using works. Always be very careful to make sure you are measuring what you want to measure and what you think you are measuring. I don't have any good books for that, but the interwebs are good for researching sensors and wikipedia's entries on A/D conversion are good.
r/robotics
r/mechatronics
r/mechanicalengineering
r/ECE
r/arduino
etc...
On the home hobby side, you can always get into Arduino and/or raspberry pi projects. There are a ton of kits, open source hardware, and open source software available for both. When you get a job, budget for side projects :)
Try ingenious mechanisms
https://www.amazon.com/Ingenious-Mechanisms-Designers-Inventors-Set/dp/0831110848
Also look use NASA Technical Reports Server to look up papers that are available.
There's many good books/papers out there on these kinds of things.
> You seem to be forgetting the minor point of agriculture failing -- or is that no longer "your point"?
How is this not willfully obtuse, if not an outright misrepresentation?
I was the one suggesting that more northerly locations would be better situated to avoid temperatures driven to 45°C+, and you responded by pointing out that even Moscow "gets heatwaves" too.
I then demonstrated that Moscow has never experienced temperatures in the 40s. Ever.
A perfectly relevant refutation of your generalised exaggeration. That's all.
> water is going to vanish, everywhere?
Obviously not what I'm saying.
Some won't get enough, and some will get far too much. And some will even get just the right amount for some time - but at some point in a collapsing biosphere, not reliably enough in any one place to ensure sufficient crop survival and reliable harvesting to make agriculture viable.
No, I don't have a crystal ball, and can't tell you exactly where that point will be, but this extinction event is unfolding with unprecedented speed, and we are still accelerating it, so I really don't believe that ignoring uncomfortably pessimistic sources is a wise strategy.
> You're now blaming me for not engaging in threads I wasn't involved in?
Sorry, I was getting it confused with the other thread we're discussing similar matters in. I have to do all this on a crappy, broken smartphone since I don't use a computer, so no split-screen windows/advanced clipboard functionality/fancy keyboard for me.
It was referenced in this thread, not the other one.
> On the contrary, I've pointed out the "links" (really one link posted multiple times)
Since /u/Goochymayn posted the link to the projected effects here, I have posted a dozen different links that weren't this one in this thread.
> Man, you people are obsessed with this one website
Far from it, though a little stubborn in trying to encourage some sort of engagement with it on your part - it's sort of the opposite of cherry picking, to go on blithely claiming that it doesn't say what it does, and that the whole thing's just too silly to even acknowledge.
I read many websites, have read the book this summarises by Mark Lunas (FWIW, it won the 2008 Royal Society Book Prize and was turned into a National Geographic TV series, so it's not just some crappy little blog.)
And I agree it would be better if the summary had hyperlinked references. I don't post it here much/ever myself, precisely because of the lack of easy to follow hyperlinks to make it easier for people to check sources online. The book is better (books are always better than this internet rubbish.)
OK, you don't recognise it or any of its sources (though they've been bandied around here often enough,) - I will add some more links tomorrow when I've had some sleep, though it will be at the expense of speedily responding to your other posts (lots of busy-ness ATM.) I will come to them when time allows.
I accept that the descriptions of the effects at each temperature band may not be accurate. Which is why it would be interesting and useful to discuss what it actually predicts, and how much, if any merit there is to their arguments (it would be even better to discuss the book, but that's less feasible online in the temporary conversation cloud that is Reddit, given how few people have probably read it.)
It's less productive in the extreme, to only ever see it analysed by McPhersonite fanboys, too busy obsessing about the doom to look at it with a critical eye. But if they are accurate, then farming will self-evidently NOT be possible, because we will all be too extinct to practice it.
Other interesting topics exist of course, but they're pretty academic if we're looking anything like +7°C by the end of the century.
That too is an interesting topic in itself, and one I would like to see more people engaging in disputing, rather than just avoiding having to consider it at all on the one hand, or obsessively and unproductively doom-mongering about on the other.
They both seem like less productive (if understandably human) approaches.
I find it convincing enough to have committed to taking the measures I have anyway, though I try to keep an open mind.
> doesn't say what they claim it does. It literally doesn't say it.
It doesn't say exactly QUOTE farming will not be possible UNQUOTE, but FFS, it's predicting the sky effectively catching fire because of the methane content, superstorms at least as extreme as the ones that caused the Permian-Triassic extinction, with ""super-hurricanes” hitting the coasts [that] would have triggered flash floods that no living thing could have survived."
It says: "That episode was the worst ever endured by life on Earth, the closest the planet has come to ending up a dead and desolate rock in space.” On land, the only winners were fungi that flourished on dying trees and shrubs."
And you think agriculture will be possible in this?
It is true, this is at 5+°C, but they also state "Chance of avoiding five degrees of global warming: negligible if the rise reaches four degrees and releases trapped methane from the sea bed."
You've made no effort to refute any of this - you just refuse to engage with this source.
It explains the inexorable runaway temperature effect that will be (possibly has already been,) initiated, and so 4°/5°/6°/7°/+ is largely irrelevant - it's going up, up, up.
And the methane is already being released in observably huge quantities already at <1.5°C, so this does not look so unlikely that it's sensible to simply dismiss it to me, considering the fucktons of the stuff there is down there.
But hey, you've got potatoes and trees, so you'll be fine.
I (and probably other less optimistically- inclined folk here,) would be really interested in knowing why you, or other more optimistic folk, think this is not going to happen.
IF (and I freely admit that is not certain, but if) we're looking at anything like these projections coming to pass this century, then at some point this century, agriculture WILL fail.
And IF the runaway effect from all these tipping points we're burning through is real, then over some timespan, that's inevitable.
> A little emotional, aren’t we? The part where "the world" = "modern civilization"?
No. The part where everything bigger than a lystrosaur, including very probably humanity, is rendered extinct.
And actually I don't get emotional about it - I'm past that.
I get stubborn, and start building an Ark.
> The article they keep linking to doesn't say what they claim it does.
It claims unsurvivable, extinction-level conditions are coming, so yes - it does say what they claim (whether or not it's well-founded - that is a different argument. One you seem unwilling to engage in.)
> I've said that multiple times to them. They have no response for me. And neither will you, I expect. Read the goddamn article.
I have. And I can understand what it's saying. I'd like a reason to disbelieve it, but you're evidently unable to provide one.
I recommend reading the book (I ought to buy another one - lent it out, and never got it back.)
I haven't read it yet, but Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas is on my wish list.
> The global temperature is increasing wildly
Define wildly. Since 1975 it's increased by an average of about .15 to .2 ^o C per decade and it's increased about 0.8^o C overall since 1880, with about 2/3 of that coming since 1975. It's probably increasing by a bit more than that now because global emissions keep increasing.
> in a few years many heavily populated areas will exceed "wet bulb" temperature, meaning they will become so hot that it would be impossible for human life to exist there
That doesn't seem to fit Wikipedia's definition of wet-bulb temperature, although I'll admit to being very unfamiliar with the term; do you know in what context McPherson used it?
It would help to know exactly what McPherson's temperature projections are. To me, the notion that the usual projections could render places currently supporting hundreds of millions of people uninhabitable within the next few years, or even decades, is tough to believe without hard numbers to back it up.
If you're curious for other sources, my impressions are based roughly on Six Degrees, by Mark Lynas and Introduction to Modern Climate Change, by Andrew Dessler. I think climate change is definitely capable of causing our extinction eventually, but it would require a lot of inaction on our part, and it would still take several centuries at least.
It's a book.
Read a book like that a few years ago. Six Degrees. It's about global warming and its likely effects.
Watch this video clip, based on actual facts.
My top book recommendation:
Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas
It paints a picture in a real nice way and serves as a good guide for thinking about various degrees.
As mentioned by /u/extinction6 watch Kevin Anderson.
Here are a few links that I've found interesting or useful.
this one is an animation of the decline of arctic sea ice over the last couple decades:
Ice Dream by Andy Robinson
The Representative Concentration Pathways- possible future greenhouse gas concentrations depending on what emissions path humanity takes, adopted for the IPCC 5th assesment report in 2014.
How the global average temperature is expected to rise based on the chosen RCP's.
global temperature rise projections for different emissions scenarios
Here is what those temperature rises translate into in the real world-
a degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms a very short synopsis of some of the effects we may expect in the coming yeara as global average temperatures rise. More detail can be found in the book,
Six Degrees- Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas
Antarctic sea ice has also begun to collapse in the last few months:
global sea ice area
From Climate Code Red, an article that contends there is no "carbon budget" left to limit warming to 1.5C under sensible assumptions of risk and potential damage-
Unravelling the myth of a "carbon budget" for 1.5C
Kevin Anderson argues in this presentationthat limiting warming to below 2C consistent with global fairness requires immediate and deep cuts in emissions in the developed world consistent with a revolutionary energy transformation.
Australians for Coal a insightful look at their corporate climate policy update.
If you have a chance, checkout the book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet takes an interesting look not only at what happens at four degrees, but also temperatures lower and higher. Essentially the book starts low and grows to the scenario of what would happen when we've reached six degrees by looking at evidence published in respectable journals such as Science and Nature
The six minute solutions books are the best IMHO.
Do not buy the Lindberg practice problems book. I repeat do not by the Lindberg practice probelms book.
I also really liked this book in the link below. There are four sample exams each increasing with difficulty. I found that the first test was generally easier than the exam, two and three were pretty dead on, and the forth generally harder than the exam.
Link
Also I will throw this book out there. This is not a practice problems book. This book will teach you how to study for the exam and the mindset you need to have while studying for the exam.
Link 2
.
The FE review manual (https://www.amazon.com/Civil-Review-Manual-Michael-Lindeburg/dp/1591264391/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483628512&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=fe+civil+review+manual) has a decent basic review of RC design. Plus this is helpful if you plan on taking the FE at some point. I think reading through the RC sections will give you enough prep to better understand the more technical literature in the textbooks you have.
Hey, how did you end up liking the book? I'm thinking of getting it myself. Also did the book have practice problems, or did you find them elsewhere?
edit: What do you think of this book as well? It was suggested to me by a professor: http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Review-Manual-Michael-Lindeburg/dp/1591264391?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0
Does Colorado use the NCEES PS test in addition to the State test? If so I suggest Surveying Solved Problems by Van Sickle.
Surveying Solved Problems for the FS and PS Exams, 4th Ed https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591264871/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_h8z7Cb5AYZH44
Can you also quote me for Civil Engineering Reference Manual for the PE Exam 15th Ed
https://www.amazon.ca/Civil-Engineering-Reference-Manual-Exam/dp/1591265088
I am not in California, but I might be able to offer some general knowledge.
> It seems like California wants us to first apply and pass the PE, and then apply for the license. Should I go ahead and start filling out all my applications and get my references ready or should I wait until I've passed to do so? I plan on taking the test in May 2018.
I would be very surprised if you were allowed to take the test without presenting your qualifications. From what I've seen in other states, qualifying for and passing the test are the major hurdles. Applying for the license is just filling out another form and paying another fee.
> The FAQ regarding EITs and other states is ambiguous. My state's EIT "License" number isn't on the NCEES website, it simply says I've passed the FE exam.
NCEES is not an official entity. They will not have any information that you don't give them. You will be applying for your license through the California Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors. NCEES is sometimes used as a common application form (especially when PE's want to extend their licenses to other states), but each state sets their own rules, so you should default to the state site.
The state where you took your EIT should have a similar Board for Professional Engineers with your EIT number.
> My school's education is also unverified - does this matter?
If you apply to take your test through NCEES (I am not certain that it is possible to do so), then you will need to verify your education through NCEES. If you apply directly through the California Board for Professional Engineers, then they will have to verify your education.
> Do I need to apply for an EIT with California to take the exam/get the Cali PE or am I good to simply apply for the next exam available?
Your EIT should carry over from another state, although California has weird rules, so there is a chance that it doesn't. Check the Board of Engineering website or give them a call.
> What's the best study material for the PE exam? Has it changed out in the past few years like the FE exam has? I'll probably take a course since I've always found it helps. I didn't study for the FE since I was just coming out of school but I've heard the PE is a different animal.
I found the PE to be easier than the FE, and have heard the same from others. I just bought the reference manual and made sure that I was familiar with it. Careful, there are different versions for different subject matter. Make sure that you don't have to buy it twice to get everything that you want.
Highly suggest the people in this thread read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-War-Invasive-Species-Permaculture/dp/160358563X
Second this. Permaculture is a great sub. And also check out the book Beyond the War on Invasive Species by Tao Orion.
And if you're curious to check out some resources on permaculture, there is an online library at library.uniteddiversity.coop that will help get you started! If you find anything valuable, I recommend supporting the authors by purchasing a hard copy as well.
I would say don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Yes, in the US, you have some bat shit crazy christians that take a literal view of the bible. Go back in time a century or two to any of the universities that the major churches were sponsoring, and they'd laugh at the suggestion that the bible should be taken literally, even in the theology department. Yes, they tried to view the evidence they had through a prism that presumed the bible was in some way true, but they were willing to reject the idea that each word was litterally true. "The Rocks Don't lie" gives a pretty interesting account of that from a geology perspective https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocks-Dont-Lie-Geologist-Investigates/dp/0393346242/
&#x200B;
The Modern Catholic church doesn't reject science. The pope worked in Chemistry, evolution and the big bang are accepted as facts, even if again the religious prism is applied to map that to "how God did it". The Catholic church still does a lot scientific research, recognising "How" and "Why/Who" are different questions. (Thats not dimiss the major, major issues with the modern Catholic Church, but their treatment of science isn't one of them).
&#x200B;
At the risk of invoking the no true scotsman theory, a lot of the stuff that American preachers today are saying, were rejected a long, long time ago by theologans.