“Everything changes on New Year’s Day,” sings Bono of U2 fame.  I don’t know whether or not that is true, but the first of January does present an opportunity for us all.  If December 31^st is a day to reflect on the year that has passed, then the following morning, once the hangover passes, is a time to consider what the coming year will bring.  We often make statements regarding the changes that we will make, known as New Year’s resolutions.

Common resolutions involve self-improvement, such as kicking bad habits, eating healthier and exercising more.  A great one for this day and age is to be good to yourself, and to devote an adequate amount of time to doing things you enjoy.  Regardless of where you are in your career, you may resolve to make adjustments or improvements at work, or even a drastic change.  Perhaps taking a course that will advance your career, or stimulate you at work represents a good resolution.

My resolution in 2011 is to continue what I started in late 2010: The Engineer’s Pulse.  This website, which was launched in October of 2010, has been well-received thus far.  I have posted about seven articles per month, and have seen the hits per month increase from 150 in October to 650 in December.  I hope that this kind of growth continues throughout 2011.

I am also encouraged by the fact that the readers of this site are scattered around the globe.  Although the majority of readers are from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, seven other countries have taken an interest, including Russia, Singapore, and the Netherlands.  The internet ensures that no place on Earth is far when it comes to sharing information.  I am happy to see that my readers emanate from all over the world, as it reassures me that not every hit on the site is my own mother’s doing in an attempt to boost my ego.

The coming year will be an exciting one for The Engineer’s Pulse.  January and February will see some provocative new posts on interesting topics.  March will be “Aerospace month”, and an “Energy month” will likely follow shortly thereafter.  I plan on making more media appearances like the one I made in mid-December on CJAD Radio.  I hope to schedule frequent classroom visits in the Montreal area as well.  Other goals include presenting some space elevator research at the 2011 Space Elevator Conference in August, as well as publishing an article in Scientific American.

The goal for The Engineer’s Pulse has always been to offer synthesized information within the scientific realm that engages people from all backgrounds.  I will make an effort to keep the topics current, and thought-provoking.  I want this site to be a place that people return to for its accurate information delivered in a friendly format, and I hope it acts as a catalyst for some intriguing debate.  I sincerely hope that interesting conversations will emerge on the comment boards in 2011.

Why is this site important?  I cannot answer for you, but I can answer for me.  I think this site is important for a number of reasons.  Looking to the future, certain commodities will go up in value, while others will lose value.  I suspect that access to accurate information will become extremely valuable.  While knowledge is power, perhaps more powerful is a reliable source of knowledge.  The book of knowledge amassed by man is growing exponentially, and no area is seeing more growth than those of science and technology.  When the quantity of information gets large, the actual value of any individual information decreases.  However, there is a corresponding increase in the importance of having a place where reliable information is stored.

The internet is an interconnected web of information that is tremendously valuable if you know how to use it.  For every useful site on the web there are at least ten pieces of garbage.  As the total number of sites increases, the diamonds become buried in the rough.  I feel sorry for my students who believe that a search on YouTube will invariably yield accurate information.  As I have written previously, there is an incredible amount one can know.  Knowing what is good, but knowing where is perhaps better.  If you have some accurate information, you have a good egg, but if you know where such information can be found regularly, you have a good chicken.  Sadly, the world is being over-run by loud, bad, sometimes evil chickens, like, for example, the political group known as the Tea Party.

Learning about science is important for everyone – not just science students.  Science affects us all.  Knowledge of science changes the way we view the world because of its philosophical implications.  It also allows us to understand the tools we use every day.  As a result, scientific knowledge is empowering.  Accurate scientific knowledge allows us to cast a responsible vote for our political leaders.  Too many people who put energy and environment high atop their key issues when elections occur haven’t a clue about how energy is produced, or why the atmosphere heats up as a result.  This is a problem.

If the above is not reason enough to read these articles, then let me offer one more: it will give you something to talk about with your friends.  I am concerned that in 2010, more online man hours were spent watching a cat clean its butt than they were actively learning about science.  Hopefully, 2011 will be different.  There must be a more valuable place to invest one’s time.  Look at the most viewed YouTube videos of all time ... The results from your search will paint a bleak picture for humanity.

If you are a student, I hope you continue to enjoy the site’s content.  If you are a parent, perhaps you will be more able to help your kids with their science homework.  If you are neither a student, nor a parent, but are simply somebody who is interested in science and how it affects us, then by all means, stay tuned, comment, and become a follower of The Engineer’s Pulse (and tell your friends).

I hope the year ahead will be a good one for you all.  Set your respective bars high, and work hard, but don’t forget to play hard as well.  Whatever you resolve to do, I hope you reach your goals, and that you derive happiness from the success.  Remember though, that happiness is not derived by basking in your achievements as much as it is by being present as you will yourself towards success.  Remember also that success is nothing more than living your life in your way.  Cheers.

Let me begin by saying that no one alive today can offer a complete proof as to whether or not God exists.  I was once at a talk where a philosophy professor proved the existence of a higher power.  Of course, his proof was based on a number of assumptions.

 

Who is God, and what role does He play in this Universe?  It is a philosophical question, and one well worth pondering.  As with most other thought-provoking questions to which there are no clear answers, the answer most parents would provide for their children is based on faith.  Many parents today will give an equally truthful response: “I don’t know.”

 

Still, man’s ability to observe the Universe, and make deductions based on what he finds, places him in a unique position.  Above all else, it is this unique skill combined with our insatiable curiosity that sets us apart from other animals.  Well, that, and we use rolls of soft tissue to clean our butts when we poop.

First, let us examine the things God does not play a role in.  The list, as it turns out, is a very long one.  God did not create the economy or the businesses that affect it.  He did not create the legal system, and God knows He did not create politics.  He did not create the education or healthcare systems (although I wish to God He had).  Philosophy and language are man-made, as is our recollection of the past, known as history.   The moral code is unofficial, but was certainly not created by God.  The music we hear, the paintings we see, and the films we watch are all made by human artists (of course, bird's sing beautifully, some elephants can paint, and most monkeys could produce a better film than "The Santa Clause").

 

God did not create poverty, hunger, or sadness, just as he did not create wealth, prosperity, or happiness.  God did not create the Earth; He created neither Adam nor Eve.  God did not create religion.

By process of elimination, we can, after some time, narrow down all facets of the Universe, and before long, arrive at a not-so-trivial solution.  Not to toot the horn of the scientific realm, but I have racked my brain for a while, and cannot name anything that God created with the exception of the laws of science and an initial state for the Universe.  Please let me know if I am missing something.

To be clear, God did not create science itself.  Science is man’s construction; it is a rational effort, based on observation and reason, to understand the laws that God created.  Science is an ever-evolving field of study that mankind invests itself in.

 

From my humble point of view, scientific laws and initial conditions form the very short list of what God contributed to the Universe.  All aspects of the Universe occur as a natural consequence of the governing laws and a starting point.  Thousands upon thousands of physicists are currently hard at work to learn about both.

The governing laws may well be summarized by one unified theory.  The holy grail of modern science is to express all of science in one grand equation.  Such an equation would predict, well, everything.  All physical, chemical, and biological occurrences could be verified, even predicted, by such an equation.

 

In parallel, scientists explore what we already know, search for new clues (mostly in the cosmos), and collectively scratch their heads to determine the initial state of the Universe.  Was the big bang the first instant, when time began to tick?  If not, what existed before that?  What was the initial state of the big bang?  In other words, God created the laws of science, but when did He press the animate button, and what did the Universe consist of at that moment?  Professor Stephen Hawking says that God was not required for the big bang to occur, as expansion is inevitable as far as current science tells us.  Perhaps the Universe is in perpetual motion, with no beginning or end.

I must admit, that studying science distanced me from God at first, because it made me question religion.  Now that I realize that religion is man’s invention, the study of science brings me closer to God.  I am studying his creation.

Professor Hawking also says that God does not intervene in the Universe.  Although neither Hawking nor I can prove this, I tend to agree with it.  God’s current role in the Universe, if any, is as a spectator.  I don’t believe that any sea was spontaneously parted for any people, no matter how “chosen” they were. 

At first, to dispel the possibility that a single miracle could occur appears pessimistic.  But, I urge you to take a closer look.

Upon closer inspection, we see that a “no interference” policy in God’s contract leaves us with a compelling choice.  Either nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle.  I choose the latter.  I see the delicate balance of Earth as a miracle.  I see the evolution of flora and fauna on Earth as a miracle.  There are miracles in each of the stellar constellations as there are in my daughter’s eyes.

I will give thanks to God this holiday season.  I will thank Him for the beautiful Universe He created, and for my family’s modest place within a tiny blue dot within His creation.  I will thank Him for empowering me with the ability to observe and question His creation.

 

One need not choose between evolution and creation.  You can truly have it both ways. 

A few days ago, at around 8:00 pm, my 17-month-old daughter was standing in the living room, when she suddenly began to spin herself in circles in an effort to induce dizziness and fall down.  She seemed to enjoy it a lot.  After a few nice, relatively harmless tumbles, she eventually made herself so dizzy, that she fell, smacking her face directly onto the hardwood floor.  At that moment, the “witching hour” ended with a brief fit of crying, and it was time for bed.

As a parent of a toddler, I am beginning to see the importance of recognizing toddler fatigue.  The witching hour is an unofficial domain of time where an otherwise normal child goes bananas.  Imagine how a prison inmate gradually loses his mind in isolation over a period of months, and condense that experience into one hour, and you begin to depict the decline of a toddler in the evening.  For my daughter, this strange yet entertaining timeframe seems to occur between the end of dinner and bedtime.


After my daughter’s spinning/dizzy/falling routine, I began to see how her experience related to an elastic material in gradually increasing tension.  Her final outburst of tears was representative of the ultimate failure of a metal rod, when it finally cracks into two pieces.  If only I could predict it with accuracy... Well, with the help of introductory material science, I think I can.

Material science is a very complex field, and has been the most important driver for the technological progress of man.  Wood has always been useful for shelter, aluminium made the bicycle feasible (high strength to density ratio), carbon fibers have been used in various sport and aeronautic applications (higher strength to density ratio), and carbon nanotubes may one day make the Space Elevator a reality (perhaps the highest strength to density ratio possible). 

Most materials are elastic in nature; that is, they deform proportionally as increasing tensile load is applied across them.  Let us focus on metals, as these materials are representative of toddlers, particularly when they are stressed, or tired.

Metals dominate the periodic table as toddlers overwhelm their parents.  Metals conduct both heat and electricity very well, and toddlers are tiny balls of energy.  Like small children, metals come in many varieties, each with their own unique overall properties.  It is the similarities between the mechanical properties of metals and the evening behaviour of young children that I would like to focus on.

Many different metals are used for practical applications: iron, copper, bronze, aluminium, titanium, etc.  Each of these metal types composes the majority of several different alloys, like steel, which is about 99% iron, with some carbon mixed in.  The alloys are usually prepared in a high temperature state, and are cured (transformed into a solid state) at a lower temperature for a certain duration.  This process is actually quite complex; it is an art, like cooking. 

Material scientists who prepare the recipes for these alloys must consider the effects that time spent at various temperatures will have on the atoms of the metal.  In the end, the alloy will exhibit many different qualities.  Its mechanical properties are mainly defined by its “stress-strain” curve, which the remainder of this article will ponder.

If a metallic rod of a given length were gripped tightly at both of its end and gradually pulled apart, two measurements could be taken at any point in time.  We could measure the applied load (tensile force) passing through the rod.  This value, in units of Newtons [N], when divided by the area of cross-section of the material in square metres, will tell how much tensile stress is in the metallic rod at that moment in Pascals [Pa].  At the same moment in time, we can verify the corresponding elongation of the rod.  If the rod was initially 2 inches long, and after some time, was stretched to 2.001 inches, the elongation would be 0.001”, and would correspond to a strain of 0.001"/2" = 0.0005 and percent elongation of 0.05%. 

If we take many readings during what is often referred to as a “pull-test”, we can place them on a graph, and call it the stress-strain curve for the given metallic alloy that was subjected to the test.  A typical stress-strain curve for a ductile metallic alloy is shown below.

Figure 1: Typical Stress-Strain Curve for a Ductile Metallic Alloy

There are several observations we can make from the stress strain curve shown in Figure 1.  The elastic region is that between points 1 and 2.  This region is defined by its linear shape.  The constant slope in the elastic range is the Elastic Modulus, E, of the material.  Something critical happens at point 2: the material yields.  The stress of the material at this point is known as its yield strength.

After this point, the ductile nature of the material can be seen (a brittle material snaps in two shortly after it yields, and has a simpler shape).  The behaviour of the inelastic or plastic range of the material is seen between points 2 and 4.  The yield strength is like the point of no return for the material; if the stress is released before this point is reached, it returns elastically to its original length, whereas any deformation beyond the yield strength results in permanent deformation.  If the stress is released at point 3, the rod will be slightly stretched (0.2%) in its unstressed state.  The elongation of the rod is greater for a given stress increase in the plastic range than in the elastic range.  Eventually, the applied stress is too great for the rod, and it fails, breaking in two.  The stress at which this occurs is known as the ultimate strength of the material (point 4 on the graph).

For a toddler, between say, 7:00 pm and 8:00 pm, a similar graph exists: it is the graph of child chaos versus time.  Below is the rough chaos-time curve for my daughter.    

Figure 2: Typical Chaos-Time Curve for a Toddler

The shape of the chaos-time curve for a toddler in the time domain between the end of supper (7:00 pm) and bedtime (8:00 pm), known as the witching hour, is clearly similar to that of the stress-strain curve.  Note that the minimum value (unstressed state) of chaos does not correspond to zero chaos, but rather some inherent chaos level that the parent is accustomed to. 

After 7:00 pm, the child begins to get more hyper at an astonishing rate.  By 7:10, she is running laps around the living room.  At around 7:15 (point 2), she yields, at her yield chaos value, Cy.  Beyond this point, her chaos increases in a less predictable way; she gets loopy.  She invents new words, new games, as she exhibits her ductile qualities.

At around 7:30 pm (point 3), she begins to spin herself in circles.  Now would be a good time to consult the chaos-time curve (CTC) and observe that the end may be near – she could go at any time.  We are in ultimate chaos territory.  Now would be a good time for the parent to intervene, so that ultimate chaos occurs in a more controlled environment (bath time?).  A few nights ago, ultimate chaos, Cu, occurred around 8:00 pm, like clockwork, but my daughter was not in a bath, and was instead sprawled on the floor wishing this daily acid trip would stop.

Every child is different, and if you have one, you might want to consider charting his or her CTC.  You could then calculate his/her Elastic Modulus in units of Chaos per minute (C/min), and both yield and ultimate chaos values.  These are all unique to toddlers.

Fortunately, children are so ductile that they bounce back the next day.  Unlike a material, which, when extended beyond its elastic range undergoes permanent deformation, the changes our children experience are temporary.  As a parent, the best we can do is to manage this timeframe well.  We can choose an appropriate environment to put our children in during the witching hour, or maybe treat ourselves to a stiff drink and just enjoy the show. 

In the end, it is usually quite entertaining.  And, we can seek comfort in the knowledge that they will wake up tomorrow morning in their regular state of chaos, which has by now become welcome.  Maybe we can figure a way to be busy during tomorrow’s critical chaos-time zone and have our spouse or a babysitter be the one to supervise it.

We are not all material scientists, but many of us are parents of toddlers at some point in time.  We should not treat our young children as metal alloys, but we can appreciate that as the sun sets, and the moon becomes bright in the sky, our children begin to behave like metal bodies in tension.