
“I’m gonna use my formula sheets and that’s the only way I’m gonna do stuff.” - ColinWright
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2016/im-gonna-use-my-formula-sheets-and-thats-the-only-way-im-gonna-do-stuff/
======
steve_g
If you link through to the NYT article, you'll see a word-for-word
dramatization of the deposition. The actual deposition video can be found on
Youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqXlRQrBN4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqXlRQrBN4)

I found the choice of accents in the reconstruction interesting. The "dummy"
expert witness had a southern accent, and the "smart" attorney had a mid-
western/northern accent. In the actual deposition, both guys had southern
accents.

Maybe it's unfair of me, but I think it shows bias on the part of the NYT.

~~~
nmalaguti
In the actual deposition, it looks like the expert actually does some
calculation with the calculator. And I imagine he did the math and saw it was
different from what he had stated.

The lawyer deposing him isn't an "expert" and isn't allowed to introduce
evidence by himself (even if it is patently obvious). The only tool he has is
to ask the expert in front of him. If the expert refuses to comply and show
himself to be wrong, the lawyer has no recourse but to bring his own expert to
court to refute him.

I don't know what went wrong here (measurements were off, conversion was off,
drawing wasn't to scale, whole thing is wrong), but if the expert admits
something isn't right, it would presumably allow the whole thing to be
excluded. The expert is trying to recover and cover his ass here. He knows
something isn't right, but probably knows that 68 feet is the right answer.
Rather than sink his whole ship, he's trying to focus on the actual accident.

I think his testimony is worthless based on his mistake and the deposing
lawyer was right to push the issue.

I am not a lawyer.

~~~
smcl
This is complete insanity to me. It's like having to accept 2+2=5! The lawyer
deposing him has greater patience than I would ever possess.

------
marcus_holmes
I'm just gonna point out the metric system that the rest of the world uses.

I had to think for a minute to work out how to convert 3 3/16" to scale by 20
feet to the inch. Now, if you'd said 8cm at 240:1 scale I'd have got there a
lot quicker.

~~~
weaksauce
It's trivial for someone that is used to it to do with a calculator.
Especially an expert. When I did a lot of cad/solid works I'd memorized the
most common fractions anyway. About 68' is not "accurate" since the answer is
closer to 63'.

~~~
marcus_holmes
yeah, but with metric it's bloody obvious when a calculation is wrong.

I'm always amazed at why the USA still uses the imperial system...

------
fsloth
I feel the experts pain (if this is a stress related thing). I get freaked out
under any interviewing. If the interview was hostile I would forget my own
name. Parts of my brain just refuse to function under such situations and I'm
not exaggerating. I.e. I know what a newton-rhapson iteration is supposed to
do but cannot remember it nor derive it from first principles. Although, I
suspect I've also relied a bit too much on google when these sort of things
pop up professionally (which would make search engines a critical part of my
higher reasoning )

~~~
xordon
But it is his JOB as an expert witness to testify under "stressful"
circumstances. I think it is reasonable to expect an expert witness to be able
to answer questions in a deposition.

~~~
fsloth
Ah - I was confused about the term (not familiar how the legal system works
there) - I thought it meant an expert as a witness by chance. If it's his job
to sit in the proceedings my comment was really off.

~~~
lfowles
I'm not completely clear on the role of expert witnesses either, I assumed it
was someone who was an expert in the field occasionally called to be a witness
but their day job is not to be a witness (despite getting paid for it).

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
There are people who make a career out of being an expert witness. For
engineers it requires having a PE certificate at a minimum which is rare in
most industries in the US. This allows the professional experts to command
high fees.

------
tptacek
From the same series, perhaps the best thing on the NYT website:

[http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004093067/verbati...](http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000004093067/verbatim-
follow-the-chicken.html)

~~~
InclinedPlane
I thought for sure that was going to be this:
[http://youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE](http://youtube.com/watch?v=PZbqAMEwtOE)

~~~
m0nastic
I'm biased because John Ennis played one of the lawyers, but that one was
absolutely my favorite of these.

------
caseysoftware
Looking at the raw transcript from the deposition can be horribly misleading
at best. The transcript doesn't capture tone, accents, stress level, pacing,
volume, and a variety of other things. A dramatization allows you to color the
scene in a variety of ways that tell the story in radically different ways.

Think of saying "wow, that's a great idea!" to your best friend that has a
great idea. Then think of saying that to the office idiot who just suggested
they can rebuild your entire system in a weekend.

Disclosure: I work in speech recognition systems.

~~~
dangerlibrary
Well, yeah. But that's also how screenplays work.

"Interpreting tone, accents, stress level, pacing, volume, and a variety of
other things from a transcript" is a pretty good description of a director's
job.

This project just uses the verbatim transcript as a screenplay, and runs with
it. They are very honest about the fact that they are aiming for something
between faithful re-creation and entertainment.

~~~
weaksauce
The video of this deposition is in the comments above and is pretty spot on to
the reenactment.

------
gizmo
The worst student in medschool can still become a doctor, and the worst
student in lawschool can still become a lawyer. People with a track record of
terrible judgement can still have illustrious careers.

So we shouldn't be surprised by the shocking level of incompetence of the
expert witness on display here. Most of us live in a bubble where we never
come into contact with people like this, but they're everywhere.

~~~
aaronchall
((3 / 16) + 3) * 20 = 63.75

He fiddled with the calculator, perhaps as he did it, he recognized his
drawing didn't add up to the stated 68 feet (1 inch to 20 ft scale) and
stonewalled, knowing that if he did the calculation for them, he would have
demonstrated himself incorrect.

But yeah, incompetent people are everywhere.

~~~
gizmo
That's possible, but his defense about not being a mathematician and not being
able to "derive the formula" indicates he's truly clueless, not clever and
thinking several steps ahead.

~~~
Joeboy
Alternatively, he's good at his job of stonewalling under difficult
circumstances, not bad at his job of math.

I can totally imagine that if he'd done the sum as instructed, he'd be facing
a dressing down from his boss as to why he didn't follow the simple "not
without reference materials" script. I imagine they're probably instructed to
avoid doing maths under pressure in general, because that's a terrible idea
for any normal person. Real life is not a maths exam.

Edit: It turns out he was his own boss, but I think the above still applies.

------
Randgalt
I side (mostly) with the expert here. I'm now in my 50s and my memory is not
what it used to be. Under hostile questioning I can forget my own name
sometimes. That said, you'd think an expert witness would keep his cool as he
might be in a court room situation with similar questioning.

~~~
danso
But this isn't a memory thing. This is _math_ with a calculator. He isn't
being asked to recite the multiplication speed tables by memory. I'll admit
that it can take me a couple of seconds to remember what 9 * 7 is when
calculating the bill for dinner, but I can most definitely do it with a
calculator, because I know that that's how math works.

I agree with what another poster has said [1]. It's likely this expert knew
how to use the calculator but then saw what the answer came up as and
realized, "Oh shit!". But maybe this was the "right" tactic to go with, if the
expert wanted to be able to weasel his way out of a mistake (perhaps he just
made a typo when he initially did the work?) without technically perjuring
himself.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10826365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10826365)

~~~
Spooky23
Try doing it in a deposition or court proceeding. It's different, and anything
you say is part of the court record, and any mistake, even one you correct
immediately is used against you.

~~~
danso
I've had to testify in front of a grand jury before. I definitely know that
being questioned in front of people is not not as easy as typing into a
discussion thread at my leisure. But again, this is not a task of recall, i.e.
"what were you doing the night the victim was murdered?" or "Do you remember
your mother's birthday?". This is a question of fundamentals. Again, the
expert is not being asked to recall the result of `3 / 16`, he's being asked
if _he can do it on a calculator_. This goes on for several minutes.

Here's what would be a perfectly understandable answer: _" I don't recall how
I got 68 when now that I calculate it, the answer appears to be 63.75"_
Because sure, it could be there was a typo in the initial work of the expert,
and it has only now been revealed. But _this is not what the expert admits to
failing to_. He's asked _point blank_ if he can use a calculator: _" Will you
please convert 3 / 16ths to a decimal value...Can you?"_ And he says, "I will
not do it without my reference material".

Again, completely understandable if he says _" I will not do it without a
calculator"_. That is not the issue of contention here.

I'm a bit surprised to see people jump to his defense. Calculations like these
are the foundation of the science and "science" that is used to convict/fuck
people over. And even though this seems to be a minor case, a difference of
_feet_ in any kind of reconstruction (scientific or witness testimony) can
mean the difference between conviction and acquittal. This is just _one case_
that has been spotted by a writer/artist to dramatize for humorous effect.
There are countless more, involving less obvious mathematical errors, that may
impact the justice system. That we can't even agree that this witness is
either too incompetent to trust the evidence that he's provided to his side,
or too disingenuous to admit his mistake...and we wonder why shit happens?

~~~
Spooky23
A grand jury is different -- it's secret.

Once the opposing counsel opens the door to extemporaneous testimony, you're
screwed as a witness, because the next question may not be 1+1=2, it may be
something else.

------
danso
So...I just have to know...was the lawyer able to convince the _jury_ (or the
judge)...that this was basic math? Because in this day and age, I would think
the average adult would honestly think, "Hey, it's unfair to make someone do
math without their computer programs!"

Also, is this really "middle school math" (as described in the NYT's caption)?
Decimal numbers were covered in 4th/5th grade I thought? (I remember learning
algebra and geometry in 7th and 8th grades)

~~~
golergka
> Decimal numbers were covered in 4th/5th grade I thought?

What?! Do US students use binary until 4th grade? This is an honest question,
I don't think I understand what exactly you meant here

~~~
danso
Ah yes, you're right. I should have said "fractional numbers". Sorry, thinking
of "DECIMAL" as being "numbers with decimal points" is a result of writing too
many MySQL [1] schemas :)

[1] [https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/precision-math-
decim...](https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/precision-math-decimal-
characteristics.html)

~~~
golergka
Wait, really? How the hell american kids count fractions until 4th grade? Btw,
how old is that?

Every time I hear stories about math education in US, it frightens me

------
Steko
Talk about crazy coincidences the expert was killed when a truck pulled in
front of his motorcycle.

[http://www.trailofheroes.com/map/weinberg/](http://www.trailofheroes.com/map/weinberg/)

------
chiph
One of the things taught in engineering school is to never trust your memory.
Always work from the original formulas and reference material which has been
proven to be correct and to work.

~~~
SilasX
You need a reference sheet to convert 3/16 to a decimal? You have to do a
lookup every time you need to convert a fraction to a decimal using a
calculator? That would be like a C expert looking up how to dereference
pointers or a Ruby expert looking up how to access instance variables (well,
except that I've seen that too).

I would think an expert witness need to testify to something more than "yep
that's my result".

~~~
PeterisP
Actually, yes, in many areas it is considered good practice to _NEVER_ do
things in your head even if they are obviously trivial to do so.

2x2=4, but anyway a cashier receiving or handing out 20 notes of 20 dollars
should still use a calculator to get the total - since otherwise once in a
blue moon a tired person will mistakenly enter it as 200. This particular
combination is a "common" source of cash handling mistakes that ocassionally
happens in every organization that has a lot of such deals, not a fictional
example.

The examples you give about programming are about understanding concepts, not
menial tasks. If a programmer needs to reference a e.g. particular
table/column name it often is appropriate as a policy to copy and paste it
instead of retyping a dozen obvous characters; I've seen people that are
paranoid enough to do that every time in production environments where testing
won't catch that and you need a script to run properly the first time. Being
careful and re-reading will catch most of the typos, but not all. When that's
not good enough, you have to reduce risks of introducing such typos in the
first place even if it takes more time to copy/paste.

So yes, if you need to convert 3/16 to decimal in practical engineering
situation - yes, you absolutely will use a calculator or something comparable
every single time, and possibly repeat it twice to verify against typos. If
you believe that you can do that in your head - sorry, you and everyone else
_will_ make a stupid mistake once every thousand times, and that is not good
enough.

~~~
SilasX
Let me reiterate:

>>You have to do a lookup every time you need to convert a fraction to a
decimal using a calculator?

I'm not criticizing those who use a calculator to convert a fraction to a
decimal. I was criticizing those who need a reference _in addition to_ the
calculator, as the witness claimed he needed.

I think we're mostly in agreement.

------
such_a_casual
Highlights:

"I am the president of a small Missouri based corporation Accident
Reconstruction Limited."

"[An accident reconstructionist] is someone who mathematically accesses,
usually traffic accidents, and applies known formulas and physics laws to the
occurrences that happened. And usually what it boils down to in the final draw
is an assessment of time and distance on the sequence, or the events that
occurred during the accident."

....

[The mathematical expert witness is asked to covert his own drawings to real
units using his own scale. The problem is (3 + 3/16) * ~20 = 68. Calculator in
hand, he has no idea how a scale works. In reality, he probably just measures
these things and puts the numbers in a computer. So he has no idea if the
computer is spitting back the correct information.]

....

"Are you capable of deriving any of these formulas?"

"Of deriving them? No sir. Not generally. We have been taught of how to look
them up in the book. We have been taught in the use of them. But to break them
down and derive them back to the square root and kinetic energy, no."

...

[The mathematical expert witness is then given the basic formula for applying
a scale (multiplication). drawing * scale = answer. The mathematical expert
then claims that he does not know how to multiply a fraction by 20 without a
"formula sheet".]

------
rayiner
The expert witness behaved pretty reasonably here. He doesn't know the source
of the error. He said the length of the line was 3 and 1/16th of an inch, but
maybe it wasn't. Or maybe, the line was drawn too short, but the right length
was used in the calculation. In either case, the 68-foot calculation could
still be correct. If he does the conversion on the spot, he's basically
committing to the 63.75-foot result without knowing if that's right. Of
course, he could have protected his credibility by doing the conversion with a
hypothetical to show he can do it. But it's reasonable not to commit to re-
doing calculations in the actual report on the fly.

~~~
contravariant
At one point he was asked to calculate the decimal value of 3/16 using a basic
calculator. He should have been able to do that, even without any kind of
formula sheet.

~~~
tptacek
And, towards the end, he was asked specifically if he _could_ convert 3/16 to
a decimal, regardless of the application, and he admitted he couldn't.

------
Joeboy
I think HNers might be working from an ingrained assumption that failing to
pass a maths test is a terrible, terrible outcome. In court, the terrible
outcome is losing your client's case. Given the choice between admitting the
error and looking like an idiot, it's very possible he did the right thing.

