NOTE: This blog is intentionally condensed. If you cant take it, you might consider some lighter reading below.
In all honesty I am perplexed by my sudden influx in the interest to blog. I suppose it’s a therapeutic after all the lab report writing and trauma that follow the beginning of winter. A note of interest would be that the idea of this blog was conceived while my mind roamed deep inside the art of creating tables for Viscosity Lab, ENG 191. The work was tedious but let me crystallize an unshapely and ungainly spark into an idea of substance.
The idea centers the quintessential question; can engineers, masters of technology contribute meaningfully to research in the pure sciences. What is the role of the overbearing “lab report” in attaining this end. At first it might appear ludicrous to the point of lunacy to connect these two points which seem at far ends of an n dimensional Einsteinium space. As I continue I shall demonstrate how related they are in as concise a manner a good, prosaic engineer can deliver.
- Lab reports create an understanding of how science really works. It goes beyond the equations of physics and the theories of chemistry into the real crux of an experiment. I was perturbed when I found out that despite the same type of material and density, the different tubes exhibited different viscosity.
- Lab reports create a respect for the powers we seek to control. I would never have imagined that Physics, i.e Young’s modulus would have made me skip a few suppers; some sleep and hypnotically control my brain for a full three days.
- Lab reports demonstrate how much we still have to learn in the sciences. (Refer Viscosity lab write-up Page 5-8. The formulas look like they involve tensors{hyperbolic})
- Lab reports give us an insight into how intricate, arduous and in other words, absorbing and interesting different sciences can be.
- Lab reports are a necessary pain in the arse, but once completed, they can be looked on as a finished work of art. I know for a fact that when I hold all those sheaves of printed paper in my hand, I probably feel as proud as Albert holding his 1905 paper on special relativity.
So, to get an understanding on how we engineers differ from our nerdy scientist brethren I need and can think of one obvious reason. Unlike “them” we use the different sciences to create meaningful articles for use by people and industry. We are the medium by which lots of folk back home wash their laundry (washing machine) or look up shows beamed from halfway across the world (satellites, tv sets). Yet I must remember that all these are but possible because of people who chose to research on the fields of sciences like Math, Physics or Chemistry. These people are not too different from us either. They just have a more disproportionate distribution of passion across subjects. Engineers with their ability to connect science with good use for the benefit of mankind are natural partners in any scientific research.
Astrophysics and dark matter holds a special romantic space in my heart usually reserved for people I love. In time they will surely provide mankind with some tangible benefits. Can’t an engineer research on this frontier of space? Or will over-specialization eat up all chances of a multidisciplinary search for truth. With all the wisdom from the lab reports, how can we go wrong?
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