Arienna

I don't actually condone violence against TAs. They have enough problems without having to deal with bloodthirsty Arie-Valkyries (23rd Engineering Battalion, obviously) out to get them for crimes against mathematics.

All laughing and joking aside, this comic right here represents one of the challenges in my life. I took all the math classes from algebra to differential equations before taking a hard science class... So I learned math like it was a magical, universal Truth that mankind had discovered through careful attention and comparison.

My first physics class came as a bit of a shock to me with the sudden realization that math was not discovered, it was invented. Human beings created mathematics as a precise language to describe physical events. My professor told me over and over, "Physics is not MATH, Arienna. Let it go and make some assumptions."

In reality and especially in civil engineering, nothing works out as perfectly or precisely as the math says it could. So in specific situations, it is perfectly okay to pretend that π (or τ/2 if you prefer), that beautiful universal constant (22/7)... is an integer.

Still shocking!

12/8/2013 - Soooo.... My boss recognized himself in the comic I drew. I tried to pretend it was a TA who said this... but it was my research adviser. He pointed out that I misquoted him and told me I had to fix it. So I did. ^_~