Thursday, September 29, 2011

Finding Highway Bridge Info

Question:

I am having a hard time locating the data for the number of highway bridges by owner, 1996 - 2006.

Response:

Open the web link in the instruction box, and go through the web page by finding the report name with the key word of highway bridges. Open the report and the table 1 has the data you are looking for.

Jingjie Teng

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Significant Digits

Question:

“what is the appropriate amount of significant figures for our calculations?”

Answer:

The significant figures in the answers depend on the significant figures in the measurements (i.e. the given values). When we are doing calculation, the rules below need to be followed:

"When multiplying or dividing measured quantities, round the answer to as many significant figures in the answer as there are in the measurement with the least number of significant figures; When adding or subtracting measured quantities, round the answer to the same number of decimal places as there are in the measurement with the least number of decimal places."

From Jingjie Teng

J. Mitchell Addition

  • Intermediate calculations do NOT need to be rounded
  • Conversion factors should be considered as exact unless you know they are accurate only to a limited number of figures
    • e.g. 12” per foot is exact and has as many significant digits as needed.  Do not round to two digits because of this conversion factor
    • Using Pi as 3.14 has only three significant digits.  Your answer should be rounded to three significant digits.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

No Course Textbook

We have found no book that covers the material in this course.  For that reason there is no textbook.  Enjoy the savings!

Monday, September 12, 2011

About this Blog

We'll use this blog to post announcements and answer questions that are raised throughout this term related to CAEE-201.  We advise you to subscribe to it via an RSS reader such as Google Reader.  That way you won't have to go into VistaBB to see any changes.  There are many, many blogs available on interesting topics.  A good place to search for others that may interest you is Technorati.

Jim Mitchell