[EricH]

Originally Posted by ratdude747

Yes, math has a place, like initial designs (you have to stat somewhere), ballpark values (for situations that are hard to model), and feasibility analysis, but any good design is backed up with a tested and tuned prototype, which in some cases require some educated "guess and check" to get dialed in.

Relying on math alone may get a good grade on an exam but for actual design work, relying on math alone is a poor practice. To me, engineering is ultimately about good design work, not good test scores.

I am going to disagree, and agree. (I know, can't lose, right?)

Disagree: Sometimes, you have only one chance to get something right. Or for whatever reason, you don't have the resources to build a prototype and tune it prior to the final design. In such cases, it's actually a lot better to run the best numbers you have available--factoring in edge cases, outside factors. Relying on math in this case is actually good design work, primarily because there is minimal chance of actually being able to test your work. (There are a number of cases like this--think of large Civil Engineering projects, where you don't get X number of retakes. You just get a case of "OK, we found a problem, how do we fix it before we continue?")

Agree: For most cases, particularly high-volume production cases, it's usually a good idea to build a prototype or other test just to make sure that X will actually work. Even on those one-shot cases, your best math is actually going to come from scale testing, where you build a nice, cheap model and run it through various simulations to figure out exactly what's going on. For more complicated systems, a multitude of tests will be conducted.

tl;dr: Sometimes, the math just needs to be done, and done RIGHT, because no prototype will serve the purpose.