Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
I just started reading this post and I’m already loving it.
Got to run, have a sparkly gem of a Ricochet article to enjoy.
The textbook opening was very, very funny to those of us who like that sort of humor.
Its effect on the reader is extraordinary not for that reason alone, if he has spent much of his life-quota of avocational thinking time on science. It is deadly serious. The eager college students probably didn’t notice that at the time, especially since most of them were thoroughly Engineerish in their habits of thought.
Engineering is a quiet profession. The progress of our very comfortable lives has been because of the thinkers and risk takers. I followed the collapse of the Florida Bridge, that when watching is kind of heart wrenching. Engineers are not given enough credit when things go well, we take them for granted.
Thank you for this article. I only understood a part of it, especially the part where you wrote:
And the length of time to create these systems is under estimated by the public. Once a solution if found, it looks like it is right in front of you. The critics are quick to say it is simple. An example is brain teasers where, when you look up the solution, it makes sense. But someone had to spend a lot of time and thought, compared with some basic knowledge and understanding of the problem to come up with a solution, or solutions.
Thanks V man,
I really tried hard to avoid the trope of ask an Engineer what time it is and he tells you how to build a watch. However I was finding it difficult to convey how hard it is to design a system that has large and difficult to measure uncertainties, and you cannot just follow the typical “just over design script”. Ply on the inability to completely test it on the ground, with enough limiting of the measurement errors, and you get stomach churn.
Some of these sensors had half or more of their science hingeing on detectors being cold enough. No one want to be responsible for failing to meet that instrument’s requirements with few hundred million dollars worth of public space sensor. Then add in the type A personalities that seem to find a home in the engineering arena and you get a least a lot of sleepless nights when the test results don’t make sense.
Yeah good times all round.
An interesting story. My father could never understand suicide. He faced financial ruin through an out of control US attorney, but never turned away from life. Sad to hear that the pressures of design under uncertainty pushed the two engineers you mentioned over the edge.
And then there’s you, @gldiii, a brilliant engineer who took a sabbatical several years ago to build a private plane from scratch (just for fun!!) and who still lends your expertise to new high-tech projects when asked even though you’re ready to retire. You have doggedly persevered all these years, and because of your team’s efforts we now have reliable weather forecasting capabilities unheard of a few decades ago. But even more than that, you care for family members and step up at key moments to offer support and friendship to Ricochet members you barely know.
This March I seriously needed a break as a caregiver so I asked if anyone from Ricochet planned to attend the biennial National Review Institute Ideas Summit (several of us had attended the last summit two years ago). Nobody else planned to attend this year, but when @gldiii learned I was going to fly up, stay with my sister in Arlington, and hitch a ride with her each morning and evening so I could attend both days of the conference on my own, he bought a ticket too. He saved a seat for me at a good table, cheered me on when my education question was the first one asked of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, and made it possible for me to not have to stand alone during breaks as we chatted with fascinating people from around the country.
That week I learned that @gldiii is a member of the Knights of Columbus and also has helped with his family’s caregiving needs. Is that generous spirit the secret to surviving for decades while working at the highest levels in the field of engineering? I don’t pretend to know. What I DO know is that because of GLD’s support, those two days in Washington buoyed the spirits of this tired caretaker tremendously, and I returned home re-energized and ready to make a difference again in my small corner of the world.
In its first decade Ricochet has become an online gathering place for very smart (and often brilliant) people to gather and know they are valued for more than just their accomplishments and/or failures. I want to thank you, GLDIII Temporarily Essential, for your decades of work that have made it possible for me to know it’s going to be cool in the mornings all week here in Florida and brutally hot by late afternoon. But thank you even more for being a gentleman and a friend this March when I really needed one. You are the very best of Ricochet—-so take good care of yourself as you wind down your current projects, and when it’s time to retire just do it!!
I am pleased to know, having switched to psychology from engineering, that some of you guys at least, art practicing art (as opposed to science) as much as I am.
It does happen. When you’re stuck in a problem and your team can’t or won’t help you climb out, and the situation persists and can’t be fixed, it affects your whole outlook.
But for the real exemplar of work that drives one mad, see Georg Cantor.
My goodness you are making me sound way to worthy ☺️
I figure you can look back on that wonderful instance of altruism the next time you’re being NOT so worthy, lol!
In your father’s case, he had an individual person who was responsible for his problems. Kudos to fighting back.
I’ve never contemplated suicide, but at the midpoint of my career (~ 36 years old) I went through a 2 year low spot, with anxiety followed by depression. The old saw about engineers being used up at 40 weighed heavily on my outlook. But when 41 years old, I had a major patent breakthrough.
I might not use my physics degree much these days, but I remember enough of it to know exactly how challenging a problem this is and to be suitably impressed with the solutions you’ve found. The fact that there is a solution at all is impressive!
That particular Radiant Cooler was launched in 1999. It is still up there, and still working, and still supplying measurements to the Global Climate Data Base (even if some of the scientists are not happy with the data not confirming run away global heating).
The original build to requirement was for 5 years with a goal of 7.
I posted about it’s birthday last December.
GLD III, just the topics you covered in the OP had me thinking about suck-starting my 9-mil.
what is that?
The way to worthy is paved with good intentions.
Our son (electrical engineer working in research and development in the United States Air Force) has risen to responsibilities I would not have predicted for him apparently in part because he understands and is willing to embrace more uncertainty than most of his engineering peers. He recently told me that he had to argue with the engineering team that wanted to build one failure-proof (and thus very expensive) prototype, while he thought it more informative for the eventual production roll-out of the program to build for the same amount of money several prototypes and see where the failures occurred. Many of the line engineers were really bothered by the idea that a prototype would fail. But he convinced them that was the purpose of the prototype.
This is why we’re develop “Engineering Models” of anything that is not of an acceptable level of technology readiness (we call them TRL’s, 1 to 9). The issue with this little slice of hades I was discussing is that the ability to accurately simulate the space environment. Without all of the reflections of energy happening inside a TVAC chamber, (yes there is re-reflections of energy in the infrared wavelengths). This is a real tail chasing endeavor.
This is why I fear for the folks who have been toiling away for more than 10 years trying to developed the JWST, which is the longer wavelength viewing replacement for the Hubble ST. They can not do a system level end to end test on earth. They have to wait until they reach L2 after dozens of mechanical deployments, and then see if it all cools down to around 40K to 50K on the instrument module. They have done dozens of small tests to gain confidence, but still ……. one can get burned.
We occasionally have engineering graduates who decide to go into medicine. Learning how to deal with the uncertainties of biological systems is sometimes a strain for engineers, who, as it was explained to me, are used to more precision, to accounting for all the variables, and so on. On the whole, engineers can contribute a great deal to medicine if they can do the work of adapting.
Doctors do a lot of things that can’t be fully justified with the available data, and that can drive a person trained to be an engineer crazy. But I never realized how crazy they might get.
It’s such a big issue that Texas A&M has decided to open a special medical school for engineering graduates. Learning how to prioritize data, discount information that’s irrelevant, and how to deal with unknowns is a big part of it, as I understand it.
I wonder, has there been an actuarial study of this field? Who wants to underwrite that whole life policy?
This post is part of our Group Writing Series under the March 2020 Group Writing Theme: “Working.” There are plenty of open days, so get busy and work it! Stop by and sign up now.
Interested in Group Writing topics that came before? See the handy compendium of monthly themes. Check out links in the Group Writing Group. You can also join the group to get a notification when a new monthly theme is posted.
Personally I prefer “suck start my shotgun” because of the alliteration, but I wouldn’t want to argue with the Boss Mongo on that one.
I sometimes wonder if confronting entropy in all its nihilistic futility might not be dangerous for the materialistic mind.
Thanks. I’m educated.
Now ask him to explain the one about the eyeball.