#bro this is building dams. we are literally studying a different dam failure every week | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

qqweebird · 1 year ago

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i love my major i love geology/geologineering and paleontology but i hate how… loosey goosey this field is about precision… like obviously they are good diligent scientists but most applications of this study are so large scale that like, decimal points either arent going to make a difference or you literally *cant* in good conscience claim a result to that precision. and when i was mapping in wyoming last summer so much of my job was “just write down what you think is true to your best logical conclusion and if someone disagrees they can go climb the mountain themselves”

#granted i WAS just an undergrad field worker for a grad student’s project there #so i literally was just the ‘hike out there and take some measurements and tell me what you think’ guy & he had to make Actual conclusions #and of course more advanced levels or fields are going to need greater precision for some things #but also my *ENGINEERING GEOLOGY* professor last year was like yeah we just round stuff off bc we arent interested in super precise math #bro this is building dams. we are literally studying a different dam failure every week #and ur telling me to just go fuck the sig figs??#(again like it makes sense theres so much chaos theory in modeling groundwater e.g. thats its impossible to be that specific)#its just crazy cus im watching a physicist youtuber and shes talking about atomic clocks being used to measure voltage and im here like #god thats so nice. i wish i could be so exact in my field… theres less pressure but also its harder for me to be confident in my answers #youtuber is acollierastro btw i lov her #birdsong

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