I am looking forward to your new back page, the "Z Files." But I must point out an erroneous statement made by author Larry Zirkle, "Experience is the best teacher". I realize that he did not author that quote, but you are helping to perpetuate it. Throughout my forty years of engineering, I keep correcting young engineers that someone else's experience is the best teacher. This combines a number of well known quotes; "Don't reinvent the wheel." "Learn from history or repeat it." and your "Experience is the best teacher." I am certain that most engineers designing safety equipment are happy that they don't have to ride with the test dummies to gain the knowledge.
Anyway, I look forward to learning from your experiences. It should be fun.
Every year you print articles on engineering salaries (DN Cover Story 07.02.01). Your articles consistently show engineers to be top salary producers. While I wholeheartedly agree that they make a comfortable income, your article leads one to believe that engineering salaries exceed that of lawyers, dentists, and some teachers. I for one find this extremely hard to believe. In my company alone, I can find numerous examples of job functions where the people are consistently earning as much, if not more than the engineers working there.
The article "Solid modeling helps engineers douse fires" (DN 06.18.01) was very informative, except the part about sprinting into burning houses with oxygen tanks. After being a volunteer fireman for 30 years, it amazes me how often this error is made. The SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) bottles contain only compressed air. Oxygen enhances combustion and would not be a good thing to take into a burning building. There is plenty of opportunity to engineer products to help firefighters do their job. I look forward to reading more articles in Design News about how firemen and women are getting a break from the dangers of the job—paid or volunteer.
I must set the record straight about advances in heart-imaging technology (DN 06.04.01). I, along with a group of others, developed a multi-slice solid state CVCT scanner, (which is exactly what we called it). This was accomplished in 1979, at the University of California School of Medicine (UCSF). A company was later formed around this machine, and the CVCT scanner was built and sold. This machine was specifically designed to do images of the heart, and did real-time dynamic imaging.
I do not take any credit for the design, but a number of brilliant engineers and physicists from both UCSF and Stanford University contributed to the design of this machine; they should be given credit for developing a scanner which was capable of diagnosis of heart disease 20 years ago.
"Pass-it-along" e-mails (DN Editorial 05.21.01) can be tedious, but some of them do contain truth, even if the information is decades old. I have experienced the superheated water phenomenon first hand on many occasions, but my first experience came in the stovetop days when I was badly scalded while adding tea to a quart Pyrex carafe that had been heated on the stove. The liquid erupted violently through the narrow neck. I believe that this dangerous situation is prevented by chemists by adding a "boiling chip" to the Pyrex container, allowing bubbles to form. Since learning this trick, I have added inert objects to my containers with good result. Be a good engineer. Investigate before you make fun of the observations of laymen.
I can't let this lengthy and vigorous discussion die without relating another sort of dangerous event related to microwave superheating. My wife placed a peeled, previously hard-boiled egg in the microwave to reheat it for a snack. The egg was removed by hand since the white was only warm to the touch. When she took a bite, the yolk exploded violently and the steam produced second-degree burns to her lips, face, and tongue. This was a graphic testament to the differential in microwave RF loss tangent between the yolk and the white of an egg. We may want to explore the useful low-loss dielectric properties of egg whites as new engineering material.
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