Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 01/28/05
Please visit the ISPE Sustaining
Organizations page on the ISPE web site.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
● 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 1, 2005 -
Nomination deadline for 2005 ISPE Awards. More
information and nomination forms can be found on the ISPE web site
● 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
TSUNAMI RELIEF:
NSPE and other engineering groups have formed a coalition with Engineers Without
Borders–USA to assist in the recovery and reconstruction following the Indian
Ocean tsunami disaster that has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people.
The coalition is in the early stages of planning its response. NSPE members who
would like to volunteer for the effort can
sign up today.
The NSPE/IEEE
"Offshore
Outsourcing and the US Engineering Community" web seminar is now
available FREE to members! See NSPE's
offshore outsourcing issue page for more information on this important
issue.
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 the Bearings
The bearings in a jet engine are designed to experience 500 million revolutions
before they must be replaced. Assume that when the jet is flying at 400 mph and
an average of 14 hours each day, the jet engine operates an average of 7800
revolutions per minute (rpm). To put that in perspective, a car traveling 65
miles per hour operates at 2600 rpm.
If automotive bearings are designed for the same rotation life of 500 million
revolutions, how many more miles further can you fly than drive before the
bearings should be replaced?
Answer to last week's MATHCOUNTS problem:
Since there are nine balls, there will only be eight times that he will need to
leave one ball to get to the next. This is a total of 8 ´ 15 = 120 minutes or 2
hours. Since window to attend the balls is 6 hours, this leaves the President
with exactly 4 hours, or 240 minutes, to attend the nine balls. Dividing 240
minutes evenly between the nine balls leaves approximately 27 minutes to attend
each ball.
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This is going to be a very large number, so making a tree diagram is perhaps not
the best method! Using The Counting Principle, though, will work nicely. He has
9 options for the first visit, then 8 for the second visit, and so on. This
results in 9! = 9 ´ 8 ´ 7 ´ 6 ´ 5 ´ 4 ´ 3 ´ 2 ´ 1 = 362,880 different orders in
which to visit the nine balls.
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There are eight state balls and there are a total of 56 states/groups to be
distributed among these eight balls. The average number of states/groups per
ball is then 56 ¸ 8 = 7. However, the Constitution Ball is for 18 states. This
is 11 more than the average 7, which is an excess of 11 ¸ 7 = 157%.
If you want to see last week's problem again, click on
http://www.mathcounts.org/webarticles/anmviewer.asp?a=601&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
