Consider a Spherical Cow: A Course in Environmental Problem Solving

by John Harte

This innovative compendium offers a variety of techniques for approaching contemporary environmental problems. Challenging, real-world situations and worked-out solutions provide the means both for gaining insights into the process of problem solving and for thinking quantitatively and creatively about such environmental concerns as energy and water resources, food production, indoor air pollution, acid rain, and human influences on climate.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Mathematics

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

John Harte (born July 8, 1939) is an ecologist and Professor of the Graduate School in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California at Berkeley and an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. His work includes investigation into a maximum entropy theory of ecology and long-term experiments on the effects of climate change on alpine ecology.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Frank Ashe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The problems here, are in a physics context, called Fermi-problems after the physicist who loved posing and solving them. This book concentrates on the environmental side of science, which is even more relevant now than when the book was first published.

And this approach is essential to risk management - getting rough answers very quickly with only the information at hand.

Q. How can you get a rough answer to a quantitative question when you have very little information?
A. You most probably can get a rough guess at the information you need, and if you have a good understanding of the subject matter, you can see what the required relationships are. Mental arithmetic is usually all you need after that.

[Valerie]

This is really about ballpark estimations in general, if it's the one I read. The title comes from a story about a farmer who wanted to improve his farm--so he wrote to the local university asking for advice. He got various responses, but the one from the Math department began "Consider a spherical cow...". Cows, of course, aren't spherical (more cylindrical), but the need to use such thumbnail esitmations is found in more fields than environmental studies, and is an art worth learning.

[Zack Subin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduction to environmental problem solving and order of magnitude solutions.