icomefromalanddownunder wrote:I'm experiencing a strange time at work. After years of only dealing with scientists, I now have a Supervisor who is an engineer (even though he says he isn't an engineer, .......He thinks completely differently, he worries about things that to me are unimportant,
It won't help and is probably quite irrelevant but when I was a Student Apprentice Engineer in the late 60's, I was told story about the difference between Engineers, Scientists and Mathematicians.
Given the task of measuring the height of a building, the Mathematician measured a distance out from the base, and then carefully measured the angle to the top and gave his result.
The Scientist climbed the building and dropped a cannonball from the top, took note of the time for it to reach the ground, and gave his verdict.
The engineer took a heavy nut (as in screw and nut), tied it to a string, climbed to the top of the building and let out the string until the nut hit the ground. He then measured the string and gave his result.
All different approaches to the same problem, and all satisfactory solutions depending on what you are going to do with the answer.