Man, do I wish that YouTube had existed when I was doing Ptolemy in college. That would have made visualizing the Almagest a whole lot easier.
I also wish that I'd had a scientific calculator (this was in 1983; I didn't even know that such things existed) on the day when my instructor, whose math class I was failing, assigned us the task of doing a Ptolemaic proof, using different numbers. I had to do all those sexagesimal calculations by hand. At a certain point, I got stuck; I just could *not* get the numbers to work. So I invented a new section to the proof in order to bridge the gap.
Turned out that the instructor had given us the wrong numbers. I got an A in that class.
no subject
I also wish that I'd had a scientific calculator (this was in 1983; I didn't even know that such things existed) on the day when my instructor, whose math class I was failing, assigned us the task of doing a Ptolemaic proof, using different numbers. I had to do all those sexagesimal calculations by hand. At a certain point, I got stuck; I just could *not* get the numbers to work. So I invented a new section to the proof in order to bridge the gap.
Turned out that the instructor had given us the wrong numbers. I got an A in that class.