Not Rootin for Newton

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This blog's been a bit sparse lately, but I have a good excuse. I've been helping a daughter with physics who's decided to get her college degree at a point in life that it can be considered a career change.

Now I remember taking physics in high school and college and I know most of it hasn't changed all that much, but it seems like a vague memory and somehow much harder. What has struck me is that I somehow managed a career in science without ever having to calculate the force required to move a 50 kg trunk up a four meter ramp inclined 25 degrees to the horizontal. For this I also needed to remember something called trigonometry and wrestle with sines, cosigns, etc. In all these years the only kind of signs I've used are the kind that directed me to the nearest McDonald's.

I'm sure this stuff must be important,but looking back I'm not sure why it has to be so hard. In forty years I,ve never fired a 10 kg cannon ball at an angle of 45 degrees with an initial velocity of 600 meters per second discounting air resistance. Not at any angle actually and no one's ever fired one at me.