Operational Research question

[stroker]

Any of you math whizzes or Engineers may find this of slight interest.

I, your humble scribe, am pretty much a math moron. Algebra has always been a mystery. Geometry and the like are no problem. Never took any kind of calculus. I passed my GRE in math a few years ago so I'm not completely incapable, but I'm incredibly out of practice and ignorant of higher mathematics. Now that I'm north of 50 years old I should be able to figure this stuff out. More importantly, I have a reason to.

Over the last 20 years I've developed an interest in Operational Research, specifically as a means to develop some skill in simulations and modeling and game design. I understand that to be competent in OR I'll need to be fluent in Calc. So I've decided to kill two birds with one stone. I have a project in which I'm interested that involves building a simple, abstract racing simulation. In order to do that I need to learn calculus. I want to learn ABOUT calculus (how it works, what the rules are, what it can and can't do, etc.) before I get serious about classes and learning how to DO calculus, if that makes sense. What I plan to do is use my little project to both learn about calculus and then springboard into learning about OR as I use the results of my mathematical activities.

What I need are two data fields. The first would be an open-wheeled series with very little to no use of aero as a performance aid from the 60's until now. The other would be a series that DID use aero (wings and tunnels) from the 60's onward. The problem is that I need the largest, longest and most consistent historical data possible. Once I have the data I can then compare them using calculus to determine differences in performance and hopefully glean how much performance improvement could be assigned to the use of aero as that technology developed.

My thought was that my two best candidates for these fields would be Formula Vee and Formula Atlantic. They both ran for long periods at many different types of venues, the data (in the form of lap times) is readily available and the rules (specifically powerplants) were very consistent.

Anyone with suggestions on how to proceed with my interest in calculus or OR is invited to PM me, but what I'd like from the rest of you is suggestions on any other series that I might be forgetting that would be better choices for my study.

Any thoughts? :confused:

[G.]

since I have forgotten more about calculus than I ever actually learned, I'll just post stupid jokes to cover my embarrassment.

http://nozama.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ed05fc28833011571598844970c-800wi

http://www.seowoman.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/barbie-hates-math.png

http://blog.pubquizusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/braindumb1.jpg

While I understand that calculus can be applied to lots of stuff, I'm not sure why you say it NEEDS to be used for this. Of course, I applaud any effort to be learnin' new stuff. :thumbup:

[stroker]

Like I said, I is a math moron. All the OR degrees/programs I've seen demand fluency in calculus. They knows more about it than I does so I'm not going to ask why I can't use algebra.

[G.]

some of this might help explain what it is. I haven't watched the vids, so I don't know how good they are.

http://www.mathvids.com/subtopic/show/25-fundamental-theorem-of-calculus

boiled down to the basics, if you have any curve drawn and you want to find the area under that curve, you can approximate it by breaking it up into small rectangles. The area of the rectangle is LxW, then you add all of them up to approximate the area under the arbitrary curve.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/O08d1ECRbqw/0.jpg

Now, make more and more of those little rectangles. A few more. OK, lots more, like, to infinity, man. Now it's no longer an approximation, it's exact. They call that "calculus".

[G.]

Calc is pretty cool stuff (I may have just shot my limited credibility down right there... :D) but most people don't use it in the real world. Using it can make stuff easier to figure out, but it's just not used (much) in non-research and non-academic situations. It does make things much easier to teach and discover. Basically, Professors use calculus because they can. They understand it and their audience understands it.

It is much more powerful than I am explaining of course, but this is how I am explaining it to a self-confessed "math moron" (who probably knows more math skills than 95% of the US population).

Maybe I'm just bitter. To go from "****ing magnets. How do they work?" to an algebraic equation, you need to go down the calculus path.

http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/classes/physics/phys196/ferguson/media/Image130.gif

[Cam]

Geek thread alert!

I too have forgotten more about calculus than.... :eek:

[stroker]

What about my question regarding series? Anything better than Vee or Atlantics for a comparison?

[Tifosi24]

What about my question regarding series? Anything better than Vee or Atlantics for a comparison?

I had to use too much calculus and differential equations doing graduate level Economics work, but I have forgot most of it, but I can provide you with some insight from the world of statistics and economics. From a comparison standpoint, these two series would be good because of the long time series. The only problem might be that there have been updates to Atlantics cars over the years, so as part of your analysis, you would need to account for these updates. Someone could chime in on this one, but if you were to look at club stuff, there might be some guys that are still using old Atlantics cars, then you could maybe get around the comparison issue.