Author Archives: mathscinotes

Air Conditioning Math

Posted on 16-April-2011 by mathscinotes

Introduction I get some strange phone calls. I recently received one from a customer who wanted to know how many "tons of air conditioning" he needed to cool some equipment he had purchased from my company. All air conditioning units … Continue reading →

Posted in Construction, History of Science and Technology | 1 Comment

Oxygen on Earth

Posted on 9-April-2011 by mathscinotes

As my regular readers can tell, I do not passively sit and watch television. While I am watching a program (history or science-oriented, nothing else), I have my computer right there and I actively research what is being said during the program. Last weekend, I was watching an interesting program on the History channel called "How the Earth was Made". This particular program was about the formation of the Earth and it contained an excellent section on the generation of atmospheric oxygen (transcript of program). In my opinion, the star of the show was a little rocky structure called a stromatolite (Figure 1). A stromatolite is a layered, rock-like structure formed when shallow-water sediments are trapped in films of microorganisms. Continue reading →

Posted in General Science, History of Science and Technology | 15 Comments

Star Trek Analogies to Engineering Management

Posted on 30-March-2011 by mathscinotes

It amazes me how often my management experiences remind me of Star Trek episodes. A good example came up today. At extremely regular intervals, I must prepare budget reports that document the spending of my department. If I am late, … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | 1 Comment

Battery State of Charge

Posted on 28-March-2011 by mathscinotes

Introduction Nearly all of our products are sold with an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) because customers need phone service for emergency voice calls, which we refer to as "lifeline service". Batteries are used for energy storage in all of our … Continue reading →

Posted in Batteries, Electronics | Comments Off on Battery State of Charge

Quotes of the Day

Posted on 18-March-2011 by mathscinotes

Since I began sending emails, I have put quotes at the bottom of them. I change the quote for every email I send. Many people have said that they enjoy them. I thought I would include the most popular here. … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on Quotes of the Day

Super Full Moon

Posted on 17-March-2011 by mathscinotes

One of the engineers just stopped by and told me that Saturday (19-Mar-2011) we will have a "Super Full Moon". This means we will have a full moon and it will be unusually large (14% wider). See this link for … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy | 1 Comment

Dimensional Analysis and Olympic Rowing

Posted on 17-March-2011 by mathscinotes

Introduction I have always found dimensional analysis to be a very useful engineering tool. I recently watched a video Professor John Barrow of Gresham College who did a very nice job illustrating how dimensional analysis can be used to derive … Continue reading →

Posted in General Mathematics | 1 Comment

A Little Drive-By Math Incident

Posted on 16-March-2011 by mathscinotes

A quick math problem came by my cube today that was worth sharing. I was asked if there was a closed-form solution to Equation 1. Eq. 1 This problem does not have a closed form solution using the "everyday" functions, … Continue reading →

Posted in General Mathematics | Comments Off on A Little Drive-By Math Incident

Trigonometry, WWII Torpedoes, and a Museum Docent

Posted on 15-March-2011 by mathscinotes

Introduction I received a message a few weeks ago from a docent at an East Coast museum. He was using an article I wrote for the Wikipedia years ago to demonstrate an application of trigonometry to high school kids. In … Continue reading →

Posted in History of Science and Technology, Underwater | 8 Comments

Neat Pictures from Mars and the Moon

Posted on 15-March-2011 by mathscinotes

One of my favorite blogs is written by Emily Lakadawalla for the Planetary Society. I was looking at some of her old material and found some pictures that I had never seen and I thought I would share with my … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy | 1 Comment