[mattkrause]

Subtly different, IMO.

You’re expecting the mechanical engineer to recall something they learned about kinematics, not derive it on the spot. It’s a test of knowledge, rather than cleverness. The equations of motion are also more central to physics and engineering.

A decent programmer should know that linked lists exist, their general properties, pros and cons, etc. However, cycle detection is not a particularly common operation, so not knowing Floyd’s algorithm tells you very little—-and their failure to do years of research in 45 minutes even less.

[neutronicus]

Yeah, I think a closer analogue would be asking something like "derive the conserved quantities of the gravitational two-body problem" and then dinging candidates for forgetting about the Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector