--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "R. Robert Hentzel <topquark_at_s...>" <topquark_at_s...> wrote: > The numbers for computation parts are generally chosen to minimize > the actual computation required. NAQT believes that tricks and > techniques for rapid, accurate computation are valuable forms of > knowledge and has no qualms about awarding points to teams that are > familiar with them. > > The implication here is that the computation of the Lorentz factor is > extremely difficult compared to the other questions in the set. That > may be; it was answered correctly in the room I moderated at the SCT, > but may well have been among the more difficult questions. I look > forward to the day that NAQT will be able to gather exact data on the > rate at which each individual question was answered. > > That said, a person knowledgeable about relativistic physics but > without the ability to calculate beyond integer division would still > have been able to answer the second part of that particular bonus > once the answer to the first part was revealed. about this... i consider myself pretty well-up on relativistic physics, but i wasn't able to crunch the gamma factor in time to answer part A. (we did pick up part B.) i think i agree with the general sentiments expressed in R's post, but i thought that using v = 0.96 c in that particular question was really unnecessary. why not something much simpler like .6c or .8c? it's just not that easy to square .96, subtract from 1, and multiply that by whatever constant, all in a few seconds. i feel bad that i didn't get it, especially since i'm normally pretty decent at rapid numerical computation, but i really don't think that this should be emphasized. augh, i just realized that i could have used the (7,24,25) pythagorean triplet to do this computation... oh well. mrowr. maybe the question was easier than i thought. even so, i think a better way to go is to ask for some kind of formula in the answer instead of a number. it's a little harder for an innumerate moderator to tell immediately whether a given answer is correct, but that seems preferable to making people do unnecessary number-crunching. this seems especially true since the people who actually do a lot of science/math as part of their academic careers often haven't actually had to manually compute any _numbers_ in so doing in years. so it's very easy for them to be quite knowledgeable about the relevant formulae in their fields without actually being able to do integer arithmetic. :) joon
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