Good points Bill. Heck, if I was doing today what I was doing in my early teens I would be considered a terrorist. I go to LL quite a lot, and a lot of the newer hires there are MIT grads. At least most of the ones hired at LL do care, and somewhat understand hardware. Still, until they get at least 10 or 15 years under their belt they get confused between the esoteric mathematical gyrations and reality. - Mike
Mike B. Feher 89 Arnold Blvd. Howell, NJ, 07731 732-886-5960 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Hawkins Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 11:40 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Help - Hope? As a data point, I visited MIT last November and headed for selected spots, some last seen in 1960. The Edgerton Center on the 4th floor of Building 4 had a class in session doing things with 555 timers and LEDs. The instructor told me that they have resources for 12 students. They get 25 applications, from grad students to local high school students. Lessee, there are about 4000 MIT undergrads, and about 15 are interested in a hands-on lab. Maybe that's to be expected, but I remember how disappointed I was when the EE department tore out the rotating equipment lab and replaced it with courses in vector math in 1955. I switched to Mechanical Engineering because they hadn't gone completely abstract. OTOH, engineers live to create stuff with other people's money. The building blocks keep changing, but the urge to build is still there. I build computers with motherboards and power supplies and cases, etc. I build a time lab with boxes purchased from eBay. The thing is, we have lost the 7-12 group, the Boy Electricians, the Gilbert chemistry sets and the magic of radio. TV promised to be an exceptional teaching tool, but selfish people with an unending greed turned it into a behavioral modification tool to create consumers. Kids learn early to concentrate on consumption and forget about how the world works. The people with the most influence on kids don't want consumers that know how to think, especially not creatively. I can't do anything about it, although I did donate to the Edgerton Center, so I play with time and wait to see if Limits to Growth was right about the population collapse in 2020. Best wishes for the new year, but don't blame me if it keeps getting worse. Bill Hawkins _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list time-nuts@febo.com https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts