Idaho Society of Professional Engineers
Friday Update - 07/16/04
WELCOME TO ISPE 2004 - 2005 SUSTAINING ORGANIZATIONS!
Basalite Concrete Products Co.
Elkhorn Engineers, PA
The Land Group, Inc
Stapley Engineering
Walker Engineering
UPCOMING EVENTS:
● Mailing Deadline for FE and PE
applications for Fall 2004 testing, August 1, 2004
● ACEC of Idaho Annual Meeting, August 6 -
7, 2004, Sun Valley, ID
● NSPE Western and Pacific Regional
Meeting, September 17-18, 2004, Coeur d'Alene, ID. Visit the
ISPE web site for more information.
Are Fraudulent
Academic Degrees Making a Mark on Engineering?
The engineering profession is not immune to diploma mills, which are gaining
attention once again.
MATHCOUNTS PROBLEM OF THE WEEK
Can you solve this MATHCOUNTS problem? The answer will appear in next week's
edition of the Friday Update!
Burned Trees Spark Debate
According to an Associated Press article by Jeff Barnard, “the U.S. Forest
Service signed off on a plan … that would enable loggers to cut 370 million
board feet of timber, enough to build 24,000 homes, from about 20,000 acres of
federal land over the next two years.” This land is a portion of the 500,000
acres that were burned in the “nation’s biggest and costliest blaze of 2002.”
According to these numbers, what is the approximate number of acres of wood that
would provide enough timber for a single home? Express your answer as a decimal
to the nearest hundredth.
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Some people see this as a good use of the burned trees, while others argue that
even burned and dead trees play an important role in that environment. If the
same ratio is assumed for all 500,000 acres, how many board feet of timber would
be logged from the entire 500,000 acres? Express your answer in scientific
notation to three significant digits.
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Speaking of trees… do you know how to “score” a tree? If you are looking to
register a tree in California, in the hopes that you have found the Champion
Tree of its species, there is a special scoring system that is used to compare
trees competing in the same category. The score of a tree is determined by
finding the sum of the circumference of the tree in inches, the height of the
tree in feet and a fourth of the tree’s crown spread in feet. If you found a
tree that had a diameter of 2 feet, a height of 73 feet and a crown spread of 53
feet, what would be the tree’s score? Express your answer as a decimal to the
nearest tenth. Check out the Web site for hints on to how to find the height of
tall trees!
California Register
of Big Trees
Answer to last week's problem:
According to Doll, this person’s life of 63 years was cut short by 10 years due
to his/her smoking. These 10 years were 10/73 = 14% of the person’s potential
73-year life.
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From 1997 to 2003, the cost rose by $1.85 in six years. This is an average
increase of 1.85 ÷ 6 = 30.83 cents per year. This means that the average cost
for a pack of cigarettes would have increased in the following manner:
$1.85/1997, $2.16/1998, $2.47/1999, $2.77/2000, $3.08/2001, $3.39/2002 and
$3.70/2003. Our answer is $3.08 in 2001.
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There are 365 × 4 + 1 = 1461 days during this four-year time period, assuming
that a leap year is involved. Spending $4 each of these days leads to a total
spending of $5844! For many people, this is the amount needed for a semester of
college or to buy a car!!
If you want to see last week's problem again, click on
http://www.mathcounts.org/Queries/POW_Archive.taf?_function=detail&Q_A_uid1=502&_UserReference=89F6FCCFA73AE54140F41EEF
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
