Читать книгу Planning and Executing Credible Experiments - Robert J. Moffat - Страница 71

1 1 Upon my (Moffat) retirement from active teaching, my recent graduates presented me with a memorial plaque bearing a gold‐plated piece of rope and the legend “You Can't Push a Rope.” This saying is one of the first major lessons every engineer learns in the course Statics, when she/he draws forces on an object.

2 2 On an exam in a graduate heat‐transfer course, I once asked: “When can equation 8‐16 be used?” One student responded, “On Thursday!” What could I say!

3 3 In one program, it took nearly a year to get the final form of the question worked out. The rig was nearly ready for shakedown runs before we were content. That question, written on a 3 × 5 card and thumbtacked to the wall in the office, guided our research through three PhD theses.