Being Useful
May. 18th, 2018 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowWell, that was interesting.
A graduate student in biology is studying the morphology of hawk beaks, and one of the elements of her study is their curvature. One problem has to do with the size difference between male and female hawks (females are 1.5-2 times larger), and she was wondering whether that would have any impact on the curvature question. So, she looked on the Math Department web page and saw that I was a geometer, and she e-mailed me about the problem.
I explained that proportional scaling doesn't affect total curvature. (Curvature at any point decreases at exactly the rate that the curve expands, so the net effect is nil.) She then asked for a reference she could cite. Unfortunately, that particular question isn't normally discussed in textbooks until you get up to differential geometry, if then; the best I could do was offer her a quote (from me) she could cite as "personal communication". She's willing to do so.
I love mathematics for its aesthetics, but it's nice to be able to offer practical help sometimes.
A graduate student in biology is studying the morphology of hawk beaks, and one of the elements of her study is their curvature. One problem has to do with the size difference between male and female hawks (females are 1.5-2 times larger), and she was wondering whether that would have any impact on the curvature question. So, she looked on the Math Department web page and saw that I was a geometer, and she e-mailed me about the problem.
I explained that proportional scaling doesn't affect total curvature. (Curvature at any point decreases at exactly the rate that the curve expands, so the net effect is nil.) She then asked for a reference she could cite. Unfortunately, that particular question isn't normally discussed in textbooks until you get up to differential geometry, if then; the best I could do was offer her a quote (from me) she could cite as "personal communication". She's willing to do so.
I love mathematics for its aesthetics, but it's nice to be able to offer practical help sometimes.
