Joe Reid was a mentor to me. When I first joined the USMA mail list, he challenged me the way a good professor would challenge a grad student. His keen eye could find a millimeter crack in my logic a kilometer away and he would then drive a wedge in gently to goad me into repairing that flaw. All the while, Joe did this in such a manner that I could only imagine him sitting back and smiling while waiting for me to get it right --- and watching to make sure that I did.
As a result, Joe played the key role in my education as a metricator and he was the one to whom I owe the most by his helping me to consolidate my thoughts. He was so adroit at this that it took some time for me to realize that I was a student of his. Socrates could have learned some tricks from Joe. I entered the USMA mail list as a high school physics teacher, interested in teaching the metric system to teenagers, and largely because of Joe's training I became a metrologist. Joe occasionally sent me materials by post and at his own expense. One of these was a copy of a long-out-of-print and very technical document on electromagnetic units, written at a time when a big battle was raging among various camps on that issue in the metric community. It is still an essential piece in my library; I refer periodically to it to wee again the views that were in conflict during transition in the organization of the metric system that eventually led to the SI. Remnants of that battle linger and we are still "mopping up". Occasionally, Joe would hit the wrong line in his email address book and post a message intended for others on the USMA list. From those few errors that I have ever known Joe to make, I gained a small bit of insight into his personal life and beliefs. I admired what I saw inadvertently as much as what I saw in his intended postings. God's peace, Joe. Thank you for all that you have given us. Jim -- James R. Frysinger Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist Senior Member, IEEE http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Office: Physics Lab Manager, Lecturer Dept. of Physics and Astronomy University/College of Charleston 66 George Street Charleston, SC 29424 843.953.7644 (phone) 843.953.4824 (FAX) Home: 10 Captiva Row Charleston, SC 29407 843.225.0805
