Ravyns opened this issue on Jul 13, 2011 · 53 posts
FranOnTheEdge posted Mon, 01 August 2011 at 5:07 AM
Quote - BTW I suck at anything math, but I can do 3D stuff, I've always told students and people who ask me questions, "when you're working in 3D its like being thrown into a dark room into a swimming pool, you are un adjusted for a few moments, but then your senses come about you and you come to the surface, although you still don't know north south east or west you do have your bearings about you, you atleats have up and down at that point, does that make any sense?
Well.... up and down makes sense, yes. and the bit about the dihedral angle of 4 atoms - I could understand that okay, but it's like I can only hold so many wierd things in my head at a time, push hard enough to get another one in and one of those you thought you'd got, just floats out of the window.
Like I can do quadratic equations if I have an example in front of me, but I can't remember how to do one without that - it's like numbers just won't stay in my head... words do, but not numbers, (could be why I like writing so much).
Oh and Bryster? Yeah, I'd love to be able to make a 3d object just by standing in 3D space and waving my hands about... the trouble is, if you did that as vaguely as that sounds, you'd get a 3d object alright, but it'd be a mess.
It's like... well we are not robots, we are human beings, and it's like you need to be able to place your fingertip on one exact position in 3D space, and move your body around it, while keeping that fingertip exactly over the same spot all the time - try it at home - pick something where there's space to move around it, - on your desk, in the kitchen sink, on the coffee table - anywhere - that pen in front of you, place your fingertip over the lead point, even if you start from a standing position, it's just not possible to keep your fingertip in the same position while you move around it.
So we need precision, and that means numbers - unfortunately.
and I still don't know what dihedral means - I can't picture it in my head.
Aha, I've found it, it means "two surfaces", di being two and hedral being "surfaces" - nothing helpful in any of the online dictionaries, but I found it on a Dungeons and Dragons website - weird!
Measure
your mind's height
by the shade it casts.
Robert Browning (Paracelsus)