Checks and Balances

I read your editorial in the February Designfax, and I think you did a good job pointing out the responsibility we have as design engineers to help children see their place in the responsible application of technology. Your use of Dr. Paul MacCready's quotation was effective, although I'm not sure I agree with his statement that human beings are no longer subject to the checks and balances inherent in nature. If anything, our vulnerability to the degradation of our environment, largely through the near-sighted designs of man, underscores your point that we should lead the way, and teach children, to make responsible choices with the technology we are blessed with. Thank you for crafting a very thoughtful piece.

-- Lyle Erman, Boston Scientific Northwest Technology Center, Redmond, WA

Weighing the Evidence

I found your article very interesting. Many of us will take exception to the statement that "chance" is responsible for all we have discovered as humans. We believe that the evidence points to The Greatest Ever Designer. Our God!

Keep up your interesting insights.

-- Larry Karnes, Ross Controls, via email

Chance v. Intellect

Regarding Dr. Paul MacCready's quote, "...chance has painted a thin covering of life...," what part does "chance" have in design? It seems to me that "intelligence" and not chance has everything to do with design. I think that nature still has some checks and balances to which we are vulnerable. For example, hurricanes, floods, droughts, earthquakes, diseases. We may be better prepared to deal with nature's checks and balances, but we are STILL subject to them. I now point you to some interesting readings by D. Russell Humphreys, a physicist from Sandia National Labs in New Mexico (ISBN: 0890512027) and Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson (ISBN: 0830813241).

-- R. W. Howe, via email

Population Growth Examined

I just read the article "Sustainability: The Sum of All Engineering in the New Century" in the February issue. The author, Leo Peters, makes the statement, "For one, natural resources are strained as the population of the developing world grows and economies expand." He had better check his facts. In developed nations, the fertility rate has dropped so low that most of Europe is seriously below population replacement level. In Italy, the government is giving incentives to couples to have children. In the United States, our influx of immigrants is what keeps our population from declining. And in developing countries, the fertility rates are not yet below replacement level, but they have dropped drastically in recent decades. No, the problem is not with too large, but rather with too small, a population. I think your magazine should stick with the technical issues involved with engineering, instead of delving into social engineering. The popular media are rife with attempts to sway public opinion in favor of the ideologies of the population control elites. I prefer not to encounter it in an ostensibly technical publication as well.

-- R. Fink, Minneapolis, via email

For Your Nightstand

I enjoyed your Up Front "Get Connected" article in the February issue. Am recommending the book Connections by James Burke and Timeline by Michael Crichton. It ties to your article very well. Hope you enjoy.

-- Bert Altmann, via email

Too Good to Be True?

While reading the article "New Class of Hydride Compounds," featuring Blacklight Power Inc., p. 47, January issue, I checked the front page to see if I had gotten an advance copy dated April 1 of your valuable publication! The article would fit a science fiction journal, not a highly regarded engineering digest. Kind regards.

-- Dr. Jean Berchtold, La Jolla, CA

On The Fly

[Re: January issue automotive feature]

I looked at the flywheel car in a 1970 mechanical design class at Ohio State. A proposal was made to hang a cantilevered super flywheel inside a vacuum vessel. My adviser, Dr. Engelman, had been the turbine design leader at GE, Evandale, OH. He knew what it was like to keep a seal on the tips of a rotating jet engine blade, much less a SF turning at 250,000+ rpm. Engelman explained the situation, then posed the question, "Given a super flywheel that weighs 50-80 lbs, turning at 250,000 rpm, which suffers a catastrophic shaft failure and exits the enclosure (and vehicle), at noon on Wall Street, how many high priced lawyers would it take to settle the injury claims? Or, if it got loose at 34th and 5th Avenue, how far up the side of the Empire State Building would it go before it stopped climbing?"

To answer that, my grandfather worked for Northern States Power in St. Paul, MN. He was in the generating station when he heard a louder than normal buzz. He turned around in time to see a 10- x 3-ft. turbine (very slow rpm compared to SF) come out the side of its case, walk across the production floor, cut a 10- x 3-ft. hole through the brick wall and disappear down a hill and into the Mississippi River. A rowboat, with a magnet on a rope, found it. It was remounted, with its blade tips redressed, and back on line the next day.

Peter Vorum, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH