Career Plan
My education and experience up to this point have given me a valuable set of tools to solve problems which have not been solved and to improve designs which need improvement. I would like to practice sustainable design of appropriate technology benefiting the hungry, the oppressed, and the poor. The disadvantaged of society are the people I would like to work for and provide my tool kit for their use. Whether it is providing water, heat, health, or something else that could be addressed via design, I would like for my career to impact the lives of people and leave a lasting change evidenced by the betterment of the community.
Syllabus
Introduction to Engineering Thought
ENGR 101
Fall 2015
Instructor: Dr. Landon Holbrook, Assistant Professor
Contact information for Dr. Holbrook
Office: TBA
E-mail: TBA
Office Phone: TBA
Office Hours: TBA or by appointment
Required Text:
Engineering Fundamentals: An Introduction to Engineering, 5th Ed., by S. Moaveni
Recommended Text:
Leonardo Da Vinci, by Maurice Walter Brockwell
Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century, by Sean Patrick
Prerequisites: None
Class Hours and Locations: TBA
Important Dates
First day of class:
Last day to drop:
Thanksgiving Holiday:
Last Day of Class:
Final Exam:
Course Objectives
Inspire students to enjoy engineering
Train students to apply mathematical skills in an engineering context
Encourage research and exploration of history and physics
Grading
Class participation will be encouraged. 5 %
Weekly homework assignments will prepare you for what will be covered during the next class. 10 %
1 mid-term test will be given to help you prepare for the final. 20 %
1 Project will be completed and demonstrated during class. 10 %
1 Paper will be written as a report for the completed project. 10 %
1 Question and Answer session will be held with each student 15%
The Final Exam will be in class and will be closed book 30 %
Honor System
Collaborative work is expected on homework assignments unless otherwise specified by Dr. Holbrook. The paper, mid-term, and final examination are expected to be your own work done without collaboration.
Campus Emergency information
Lecture Outline
Sample Lecture for "Introduction to Engineering Thought"
Analytical Sciences are formed out of Philosophic principals applied to societal needs. An interesting side note, Plato can be seen as a good example of the analytical scientist, but he was following in the footsteps of Socrates the "politician" (Good General Greek History). Plato created thought experiments, but he never tested them because of his belief that experimentation was never necessary. Similar to Einstein's thought experiments on quantum study because they were unable to do experimental work on that scale at the time (not by choice).
Similar to Plato stepping away from politics, Aristotle stepped away from unverified thought. Aristotle changed the way we see science by applying simple logic and keeping track of (empirical science). Statements are made by logically following physical observations and isolating the system you are observing to discover what might cause the change. This progressed for a while, but we'll fast forward a couple thousand years or so and settle on Galileo and the easy target of Sir Isaac Newton to explore more of what we mean about the merging of empirical and analytical.
Newton's well known laws of motion (1687) are sentences that describe the motions of objects and relate Galileo's work on celestial bodies to objects we live in contact with. Every word is deliberate and has a precise meaning. These are analytical relationships, but the are confirmed with experimental success. Newton however, also offered "numerical" possibilities in his solution of problems which could not be solved "analytically".
Considering lastly the subject you may be least familiar with, Numerical Anaylsis. Leonard Euler is a good subject to discuss for the application of analytical and empirical thought to the pursuit of an answer, a result, a number. While this branch has been around for a very long time, it is the implementation of the personal computer that allows for a great number of calculations to be followed through quickly and reliably. Prior to the computer iterations would be computed by hand and could take months to complete. As an interesting anecdote, in 1910 Lewis Fry Richardson ran numerical analysis to predict the weather at 1 pm based on the weather at 7 am. Three months later, his results were incorrect, but his process was mostly correct and the amount of work it took to do by hand is astonishing. "He calculated himself that it would need 60,000 people involved in the calculations in order to have the prediction of tomorrow's weather before the weather actually arrived.(ref)"
The process of numerical analysis in terms of my research can be seen simply as using things that people like Euler came up with and Richardson used to simplify complex problems. These complicated problems are Differential equations, which simply means that things that we observe are changing with respect to the change in a quantity (or two, or three or more). These equations are "coupled" meaning that you have to solve them all at the same time. So numerical analysis is taking a small problem that is very complicated and translating it into a simple problem that is very large.
