Art of approximation in science and engineering

[adamgordonbell]

http://mit.edu/6.055/

[splat]

Also check out Caltech's Ph 101, Order of Magnitude Physics:

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~oom/index.html

The course notes aren't nearly as good, but the homework sets have some really fun problems.

[mhartl → splat]

The similarity is no coincidence: Sanjoy Mahajan, the principal instructor of the MIT course, did his Ph.D. at Caltech under Sterl Phinney, the instructor for the course you linked. Moreover, half of Sanjoy's dissertation was an order-of-magnitude physics textbook based on Sterl's course (taught for many years with fellow astrophysicist Peter Goldreich, now a professor emeritus).

(N.B. I taught Physics 1 with Sanjoy when we overlapped at Caltech, and Sterl was my Ph.D. advisor as well.)

[adamgordonbell]

This looks to be a good resource for back of the envelope style estimations

[dedalus]

I read http://www.amazon.com/Guesstimation-Solving-Worlds-Problems-... and the attached link delves into far greater theory than the book.

Thank you for sharing this with us :-)

[sp332]

There are whole fields of theory & practice where approximations are all that are used. http://www.wastedtalent.ca/index.php?view=341

[gcheong]

Have the handouts been published together in book form yet?