Masters in Applied Math w/ concentration in EE & DSP

Well the computational linguistics program is far enough away that I
would have to move to enroll in it, the masters program I'm mostly
considering is at the school I'm at now, so it would be much simpler,
and I don't have the prereqs for the comp ling. program anyways.

As for the main issue, if dsp engineer work is how Rune says it is
then I'm not doing it, I'll just get the pure math masters and decide
from there whether to teach at a CC or go on to a phd.  But if the
situation is better here in America then maybe I should do it, so
hopefully I can hear more about that.

On 8 Jan, 21:39, Tim Wescott <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:39:26 -0800, Rune Allnor wrote:

> > I will not pretend to be able to tell you what to do. But I can
> > confidently tell you what *not* to do: Stay away from a carreer in DSP.
> > Pursue DSP if you want, but don't let it become more than a hobby.
>
> > Rune
>
> > [*] In the lottery, somebody actually wins.
>
> Rune, I'm not sure that what you say reflects working in Norway, or if
> you're just getting bitter as you age.

To the extent I have worked at PhD level, I have been
messing with kooks and frauds. Like the guy who wanted
to use a radar to measure the thickness of a piece of
conducting material: He was a professor of radar
technology with a (then) 25-year record of work with
some rather high-profile & -prestige organizations.

My job was to sit in with my clients, customers who
considered buying his system, to spot why it did
not work. I still don't understand why he was not
pursued for attempted fraud - the only reason
I can think of is that he went to sell the system
to my clients' competitors.

Then there was the sonar to detect corroded
munitions - totally insane, as the chemical
composition of materials can't be determied
through acoustics. The acoustics professor with
(then) 40 year experience ought to know.

That's the kind of projects I have been involved
with: Stuff that immediately fall to high-school
physics, once one thinks the idea completely through.

Rune

Eric Proffitt <esproff@gmail.com> wrote:

> I fear this may not be the appropriate forum for this post, but I
> don't know where else to go and since every bit of info I can get is
> critical to making this very important life decision, I'm going to
> anyways.

> Very soon I will have to decide whether to continue on with pure math
> with the intent of getting a phd, or to instead opt for an applied
> math masters with a concentration in electrical engineering and dsp.
> I really like math, and I think I would enjoy applying mathematical
> analysis to solve real world problems a l&#4294967295; signal processing. I have
> done quite a bit of lurking on this forum and it seems like some of
> you know quite a bit of advanced math in the areas of complex and
> fourier analysis, and even branching out into analytic number theory
> from time to time (way cool).  But I generally can't figure out which
> posts come from people in industry, and which come from people in
> academia.

As far as I know, it isn't industry vs. academia, but what I usually
call theoretical vs. applied. There are many stories in physics where
it is obvious which side a person should be on. An old favorite is 
known as the Pauli effect, supposedly experiments have been known to
fail if Pauli was even just in the building.

My own favorite story was of someone I knew, a brand-new Ph.D in
condensed-matter theory, who, at his Ph.D celebration couldn't figure
out how to open a Champagne bottle. 

I remember in my undergraduate physics classes comments from the TA
about which students were going to be theoretical and which experimental
by noticing which problems they did better on. 

Do you like to take things apart and see how they really work?
As far as I know, most good engineers and experimental physicists 
liked to take thing apart when they were pretty young. (Well, and
put them back together again.)

If you would rather read books, instead of take things apart, then
I would suggest going for the pure (not applied) math choice.

> I like physics and engineering as well and I think I would enjoy the
> other aspects of dsp engineering: programming, writing reports,
> working with others, troubleshooting etc.  But I also like to be
> intellectual challenged and creatively apply math, so is this the
> right job for me?  

(snip)

There should be enough problems in engineering or applied math
to keep someone challenged, but they will be different kinds
of problems, with different challenges. 

Consider Fermat's last theorem. While an engineer might find it 
interesting reading, most would not actually be interesting in
working on a challenge like that. 

Engineers can be told that something is true, that someone else has
proved that it is true, and use that without needing to see the proof.
They know what works in actual, real-life, problems even if it
doesn't work in the theoretical sense.

-- glen

On 8 Jan, 23:48, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> Do you like to take things apart and see how they really work?
> As far as I know, most good engineers and experimental physicists
> liked to take thing apart when they were pretty young. (Well, and
> put them back together again.)

I tend to agree with this.

> If you would rather read books, instead of take things apart, then
> I would suggest going for the pure (not applied) math choice.

Hmmm... I have a problem with this one. *Math* is the
one field of engineering where thinkers tend to do
better than tinkers, no matter the application.

The decider is not the theoretically or practically
inclined mind; the theoretical inclination a must
for both the 'applied' and the 'pure' math. The
decider is the motivation: math for its own sake
or because it is somehow useful?

> Engineers can be told that something is true, that someone else has
> proved that it is true, and use that without needing to see the proof.
> They know what works in actual, real-life, problems even if it
> doesn't work in the theoretical sense.

Not long ago I did the exact opposite: Somebody had
a problem with a manufacturing process they were
not able to figure out. Troubleshooting had produced
no results - nothing they tried made any difference
to the problem - and now every (and I mean *every*)
possible factor had been excluded as causing the
problem.

So we reviewed the theory: Everybody knew the theory
said that one hunch some of the staff had, and I had
picked up on, must be wrong. When I mentioned the hunch,
some of the process engineer staff seemed as if they
wanted the guys in white come and collect me, straight-
jacket and all.

My reasoning was simple: As Sherlock Holmes once said,
"When every impossible solution has been excluded,
whatever remains must be the answer, however
improbable."

The process foreman liked the idea, and tested it:
Adjusting for the suspected effect caused the problem
to go away.

So the engineers *knew* the contributions from the
effect to be insignificant. They even proved it,
theoretically: "The energy conribution of this
effect accounts for 0.0001% (or some such number)
of the total energy balance. No way that's the
problem!"

So they *knew* the effect did not work, even if it
was the only one switch we turned that actually had an
effect on the problem under study: Every other factor
had been tested and excluded as cause, as the problem
persisted no matter what we did.

After some time we even managed to come up with
a theoretical explanation that both explained the
effect, and also why the engineers was unable to
pick up on it in their calculations.

A ridiculously fun project to take part in. Not
quite as much fun not to have the sufficient clout
to get the solution implemented to my spec.

Rune

Rune Allnor <allnor@tele.ntnu.no> wrote:
> On 8 Jan, 23:48, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

>> Do you like to take things apart and see how they really work?
>> As far as I know, most good engineers and experimental physicists
>> liked to take thing apart when they were pretty young. (Well, and
>> put them back together again.)

> I tend to agree with this.

>> If you would rather read books, instead of take things apart, then
>> I would suggest going for the pure (not applied) math choice.

> Hmmm... I have a problem with this one. *Math* is the
> one field of engineering where thinkers tend to do
> better than tinkers, no matter the application.

I don't know if I can explain it better, but there is a
difference. There are different kinds of thinkers, some of
whom are good at practical problems, some at theoretical
problems. But you are probably right, in that the weighting
is wrong. The engineers also like to read books. Try again:

If you like to read books and really hate having to take things
apart and put them back together again, go for the pure math side.

Would you trust someone who proved Fermat's last theorem to
change the spark plugs on your car?

> The decider is not the theoretically or practically
> inclined mind; the theoretical inclination a must
> for both the 'applied' and the 'pure' math. The
> decider is the motivation: math for its own sake
> or because it is somehow useful?

Yes, but they are still different, at least in physics.
Applied math is pretty close to physics in the cases that
I know. (One applied math department I know mostly works
on computational fluid dynamics.) 

But the math for its own sake, or because it is useful,
probably also works.

>> Engineers can be told that something is true, that someone else has
>> proved that it is true, and use that without needing to see the proof.
>> They know what works in actual, real-life, problems even if it
>> doesn't work in the theoretical sense.

> Not long ago I did the exact opposite: Somebody had
> a problem with a manufacturing process they were
> not able to figure out. 

(snip)
> My reasoning was simple: As Sherlock Holmes once said,
> "When every impossible solution has been excluded,
> whatever remains must be the answer, however
> improbable."

> The process foreman liked the idea, and tested it:
> Adjusting for the suspected effect caused the problem
> to go away.

Yes there are cases like that.

There is a story, supposed to be true but you never know,
about an electroplating company. Most of the time everything
was fine, but sometimes it didn't work right. After much study,
it was found that it failed when a certain janitor went on
vacation, so they took the janitor in and asked him what he did
to the electroplating tank. It took some convincing because he
didn't want to get in trouble, but they finally convinced him
that whatever he did was good, not bad. OK, he was finally 
convinced and admitted that he would pee in the tank and throw
his cigars into the tank. As far as I know, though much of the
theory of electroplating isn't known so well.

-- glen

On 9 Jan, 02:23, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Rune Allnor <all...@tele.ntnu.no> wrote:

> > Not long ago I did the exact opposite: Somebody had
> > a problem with a manufacturing process they were
> > not able to figure out.
>
> (snip)
>
> > My reasoning was simple: As Sherlock Holmes once said,
> > "When every impossible solution has been excluded,
> > whatever remains must be the answer, however
> > improbable."
> > The process foreman liked the idea, and tested it:
> > Adjusting for the suspected effect caused the problem
> > to go away.
>
> Yes there are cases like that.
>
> There is a story, supposed to be true but you never know,
> about an electroplating company. Most of the time everything
> was fine, but sometimes it didn't work right. After much study,
> it was found that it failed when a certain janitor went on
> vacation, so they took the janitor in and asked him what he did
> to the electroplating tank. It took some convincing because he
> didn't want to get in trouble, but they finally convinced him
> that whatever he did was good, not bad. OK, he was finally
> convinced and admitted that he would pee in the tank and throw
> his cigars into the tank. As far as I know, though much of the
> theory of electroplating isn't known so well.

That kind of story is rather typical: The process
varies unecplicably, and it turns out somebody does
something to the process, either for better or for
worse.

Somebody with a 'mathematically inclined' mind and
interest in practical work with tangible results,
could do far worse than getting involved with
Six Sigma type problem-solving teams.

Rune

On 1/8/2012 8:23 PM, glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:

   ...

> There is a story, supposed to be true but you never know,
> about an electroplating company. Most of the time everything
> was fine, but sometimes it didn't work right. After much study,
> it was found that it failed when a certain janitor went on
> vacation, so they took the janitor in and asked him what he did
> to the electroplating tank. It took some convincing because he
> didn't want to get in trouble, but they finally convinced him
> that whatever he did was good, not bad. OK, he was finally
> convinced and admitted that he would pee in the tank and throw
> his cigars into the tank. As far as I know, though much of the
> theory of electroplating isn't known so well.

That story morphed since I heard it only second hand. Bud Morris, the 
head plater at Sarnoff was the chairman of the Delaware Valley 
Electrechemical Society. A friend of his was called in as a consultant 
to a firm that did bright plating, a process that put a polish onto 
lipstick cases without the need for buffing. (The process involves 
biased low-frequency AC, so that material is plated on all over and 
selectively removed from the high points.)  As business grew, a second 
shift was added. As it grew further, another plating tank was started 
up. The second tank gave poor results, and the owner spent a lot of time 
at it tinkering with the regime and the formula. When the first tank 
began to deteriorate, the owner -- himself an electrochemist -- called 
in Bud's friend. They arranged for him to be hired on as a working 
member of the crew, working undercover. The owner stayed away. After his 
second stint on the night shift, he went to the boss's office, and said 
"Do you know how far it is from the tank to the bathroom? That's how a 
urea additive came to be the trade secret behind successful bright plating.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote:

(snip of story on electroplating)

> That story morphed since I heard it only second hand. Bud Morris, the 
> head plater at Sarnoff was the chairman of the Delaware Valley 
> Electrechemical Society. A friend of his was called in as a consultant 
> to a firm that did bright plating, a process that put a polish onto 
> lipstick cases without the need for buffing. (The process involves 
> biased low-frequency AC, so that material is plated on all over and 
> selectively removed from the high points.)  As business grew, a second 
> shift was added. As it grew further, another plating tank was started 
> up. The second tank gave poor results, and the owner spent a lot of time 
> at it tinkering with the regime and the formula. When the first tank 
> began to deteriorate, the owner -- himself an electrochemist -- called 
> in Bud's friend. They arranged for him to be hired on as a working 
> member of the crew, working undercover. The owner stayed away. After his 
> second stint on the night shift, he went to the boss's office, and said 
> "Do you know how far it is from the tank to the bathroom? That's how a 
> urea additive came to be the trade secret behind successful bright plating.

I am not sure now where I read this, probably in an electroplating book.

Your story doesn't have the cigar, which I remember being in the
one I read. It seems close enough. though, that it is likely somehow
a variant of yours. 

-- glen

On Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:08:33 -0800, Rune Allnor wrote:

> On 8 Jan, 21:39, Tim Wescott <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 08 Jan 2012 01:39:26 -0800, Rune Allnor wrote:
> 
>> > I will not pretend to be able to tell you what to do. But I can
>> > confidently tell you what *not* to do: Stay away from a carreer in
>> > DSP. Pursue DSP if you want, but don't let it become more than a
>> > hobby.
>>
>> > Rune
>>
>> > [*] In the lottery, somebody actually wins.
>>
>> Rune, I'm not sure that what you say reflects working in Norway, or if
>> you're just getting bitter as you age.
> 
> To the extent I have worked at PhD level, I have been messing with kooks
> and frauds. Like the guy who wanted to use a radar to measure the
> thickness of a piece of conducting material: He was a professor of radar
> technology with a (then) 25-year record of work with some rather
> high-profile & -prestige organizations.
> 
> My job was to sit in with my clients, customers who considered buying
> his system, to spot why it did not work. I still don't understand why he
> was not pursued for attempted fraud - the only reason I can think of is
> that he went to sell the system to my clients' competitors.
> 
> Then there was the sonar to detect corroded munitions - totally insane,
> as the chemical composition of materials can't be determied through
> acoustics. The acoustics professor with (then) 40 year experience ought
> to know.
> 
> That's the kind of projects I have been involved with: Stuff that
> immediately fall to high-school physics, once one thinks the idea
> completely through.

I've run into a few PhD's like that.  Fortunately most of them have been 
pretty down-to-earth.

(One is a friend who I met because he got himself a job as a regular old 
software engineer, _specifically_ to pick up all the practical knowledge 
that he knew he hadn't learned getting it piled higher and deeper.  I 
ended up being the technical lead told off to direct him, and it was a 
joy.  He's my shining example of someone who not only made money 
implementing neural nets (which isn't surprising given when I met him), 
but whose neural nets made money for the people who paid him -- _that's_ 
an achievement).

-- 
My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook.
My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook.
Why am I not happy that they have found common ground?

Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software
http://www.wescottdesign.com

On 9 Jan, 06:05, glen herrmannsfeldt <g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Jerry Avins <j...@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> (snip of story on electroplating)
>
>
>
>
>
> > That story morphed since I heard it only second hand. Bud Morris, the
> > head plater at Sarnoff was the chairman of the Delaware Valley
> > Electrechemical Society. A friend of his was called in as a consultant
> > to a firm that did bright plating, a process that put a polish onto
> > lipstick cases without the need for buffing. (The process involves
> > biased low-frequency AC, so that material is plated on all over and
> > selectively removed from the high points.) &#4294967295;As business grew, a second
> > shift was added. As it grew further, another plating tank was started
> > up. The second tank gave poor results, and the owner spent a lot of time
> > at it tinkering with the regime and the formula. When the first tank
> > began to deteriorate, the owner -- himself an electrochemist -- called
> > in Bud's friend. They arranged for him to be hired on as a working
> > member of the crew, working undercover. The owner stayed away. After his
> > second stint on the night shift, he went to the boss's office, and said
> > "Do you know how far it is from the tank to the bathroom? That's how a
> > urea additive came to be the trade secret behind successful bright plating.
>
> I am not sure now where I read this, probably in an electroplating book.
>
> Your story doesn't have the cigar, which I remember being in the
> one I read. It seems close enough. though, that it is likely somehow
> a variant of yours.

The cigar doesn't quite make sense: it introduces
solid residues in the bath, that would likely be
detected during cleaning an maintenance, as well
as by producing flaws in the electroplated surfaces.

Peeing in the bath merely adjusts the chemical
composition of the liquid, which is far harder
to detect.

Rune