Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 01/14/05
Please visit the ISPE Sustaining
Organizations page on the ISPE web site.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
● January 13 - 17, 2005 - NSPE Winter
Meeting, San Diego, California
●
January
15, 2005 - Future City Idaho Competition - 7:30 AM - 3:30 PM - BSU Student Union
Building - Jordan Ballroom. For more information contact Bill Holder at
whholder@terracon.com or visit the
Future City - Idaho web site at
http://sections.asce.org/sis/futurecity.html
● February 5, 2005 - Northern Chapter
MATHCOUNTS Competition - Lewiston
● February 8, 2005 - Magic Valley Chapter
MATHCOUNTS Competition - Twin Falls
● February 12, 2005 - Southeast Chapter
MATHCOUNTS Competition - Pocatello
● February 12, 2005 - Southwest Chapter
MATHCOUNTS Competition - Boise
● February 15, 2005 - Northern Chapter
MATHCOUNTS Competition - Coeur d'Alene
● February 20 - 26, 2005 - National
Engineers Week
● February 22, 2005 -
ISPE Southwest Chapter Engineers Week Luncheon -
11:30 am - Doubletree Riverside - Boise
● March 5, 2005 - State MATHCOUNTS
Competition - Boise
● April 14 - 16, 2005 - ISPE Annual
Meeting, Pocatello, Idaho
● July 7 - 9, 2005 - NSPE 2005 Annual
Convention, Chicago, Illinois
Engineer Volunteer for
Selection Committee
The Division of Public Works is asking for an engineer volunteer for a selection
committee for the University of Idaho, Performance Contract (DPW 05-257 see
http://www2.state.id.us/adm/pubworks/dpwprofservices.htm )
The preliminary review will be a paper review (around the 11th of February) and
a short list compiled from this paper evaluation. An in-person interview at the
University will occur in March (around the 11th). There is no travel allowance
for this interview day nor fees available. Therefore, it is anticipated that an
engineer from the area would be used - although not necessary if another
engineer knows that they'll be in the area then anyway.
Volunteers are requested to contact Jim Szatkowski, PE, NSPE at 208-332-1905 (jim.szatkowski@adm.idaho.gov)
for further information or to participate. One engineer is requested.
Volunteers Needed!
Volunteers from all engineering disciplines are needed to interview
Boise State Students for the 2005 Outstanding Engineering Student Awards.
Volunteers will make the selection of the outstanding student in each of the
three disciplines (CE, ME, and EE) at Boise State. The time commitment will be
one evening for approximately 3 hours between January 22 and February 21. The
interviews will take place at Boise State University. All student nominees will
be honored at the Engineers Week Banquet on February 22. If you would like to
volunteer please e-mail Heather Carroll at
hcarroll@dohertyeng.com.
ABET NEEDS PRACTICING ENGINEERS!
Here's your chance to contribute your experience and expertise and get involved
in the process to help ensure that today's university programs are adequately
preparing engineering graduates to become professional practitioners in the 21st
century. Who knows the skills needed by an engineer in today's business
environment better than YOU, a practicing engineer! Become an ABET Evaluator and
qualify to visit colleges and universities to review engineering curriculum.
Register for a special session of EAC-ABET Evaluator Training.
EC 2000 ABET Evaluator Training
January 15, 2005
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Registration: $125.00 includes lunch
Register on-site on January 15, 2005:
San Diego Marriott Mission Valley
8757 Rio San Diego Drive
San Diego, CA 92108
Learn more about becoming an ABET Evaluator at
www.abet.org. Questions? contact Mary at
mmaul@nspe.org.
TAKE THE JETS CHALLENGE
Can you solve this JETS challenge problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
The Challenge of E=mc2
The sun is a sphere that is 1.392 million kilometers in diameter. It is
estimated that each square meter of that surface emits energy at a rate of
49,000 kilowatts (kw/m2). A kw is equal to the fundamental units of 1000
kg-m2/s3. Einstein's famous equation, E = mc2 means that a very small fraction
of mass is lost in the conversion to energy. It is small because the speed of
light 300,000 km/s is very large.
What is the rate of weight loss (kg/sec) experienced by the sun for each second
during the past 4.5 billion years?
Answer to last week's MATHCOUNTS problem:
Since Peitlyn is reading 1 page every 2 minutes, she is reading 15 pages each
day. She will have a read a total of 31 + 28 + 31 = 90 days after reading on
March 31, 2005. This is a total of 15 ´ 90 = 1350 pages. If we spread this
evenly over her 6 books, this is an average of 1350 ¸ 6 = 225 pages per book.
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If Nora sticks to her resolution, she will do four 45-minute workouts each week,
which is 4 ´ 45 = 180 minutes each week, which is 180 ¸ 60 = 3 hours per week.
By the end of her eighth week she will have exercised 3 ´ 8 = 24 hours. The
start dates of these 8 weeks are Jan 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, (remember January has 31
days) Feb. 5, 12, 19. Therefore, during the week starting on Feb. 26 she will
need only one more hour of exercise. If she exercises on the 26th, she’ll be up
to 24 hours and 45 minutes. If she exercises on the 27th, too, that will put her
over the 25-hour mark. Therefore, the first possible date is February 27 if she
sticks to her resolution.
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We know that during the first week of the year Riley is watching 22 hours of
television. During the second week she is allowing herself 22 ´ .9 = 19.8 hours.
During the third week, she is allowing herself 19.8 ´ .9 or (22 ´ .9) ´ .9 = 22
´ .92 hours. During the fourth week, she will allow herself ((22 ´ .9) ´ .9) ´
.9 = 22 ´ .93 hours. We can see that during the nth week, she will allow herself
to watch 22 ´ .9n-1 hours of television. We are trying to determine when 22 ´
.9n-1 £ 5 hours. Of course, we could continue this process of multiplying by .9
until we get to a number under 5. (If we do continuous multiplication without
performing any rounding along the way, we will see that we have to multiply 22
by .9 a total of 15 times which will put us in the 16th week… this is our
answer!) Here’s an alternative that is a bit more advanced, but shows how to do
this problem without continuously multiplying by .9. Dividing both sides of our
inequality by 22, we have .9n-1 £ (5 ¸ 22) or .9n-1 £ .227272727. Because our
variable is in the exponent, we can use logarithms. If we take the log of both
sides, we have [log (.9n-1)] £ (log .227272727). A law of logs allows us to
rewrite this as (n-1) ´ (log .9) £ (log .227272727). Now, dividing both sides of
the inequality by (log .9) (there will by a "log" button on scientific
calculators), we have [(n-1) (log .9)] ¸ (log .9) ³ (log .227272727) ¸ (log .9)
or n-1 ³ 14.06223. (Notice that (log .9) is a negative value, so when we divided
both sides of the inequality by that value, we needed to reverse the inequality
symbol, too.) Now by adding 1 to both sides, we have n ³ 15.06223, and since we
are trying to find the least possible value of n, we choose n = 16. In other
words, her total viewing time will be under 5 hours for the first time during
the 16th week of the year. We can check this. During the 15th week of the year
she will be at 22 ´ .914 = 5.03 hours, but during the 16th week she will be at
22 ´ .915 = 4.53 hours.
If you want to see last week's problem again, click on
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=596&z=104
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
PO Box 170239
Boise, ID 83717-0239
208-426-0636
Fax: 208-426-0639
E-Mail: ispe@rmci.net
Web Site: www.Idahospe.org
Idaho
Society of Professional Engineers
