STEM + Cause & Effect

As mentioned in the Preface, my Grandmother was 15 when the Wright brothers first flew, and 81 when man walked on the Moon. Not only was that rate of progress simply amazing, it was vastly faster than in the millennium before. The Industrial Age was less than 100 years old at the time of her birth, and progress in her lifetime was not just technological. Society, governments, borders, and ways of life also changed. When she was born in Ireland in 1888, Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, Victoria was Queen, and the Sun never set on the British Empire.

Six other empires existed at the time. One was ruled by Victoria's grandson, the German Kaiser. In another, the Russian Tsar was married to her granddaughter. Four other emperors were the AustroHungarian Emperor, the Ottoman Sultan, and the Emperors of China and Japan. During my Grandmother's life all seven empires were relegated to garbage bins of history and more than a hundred new countries emerged. Just as much change is ahead of us.

When I showed my grandchildren my Father's stamp album and my own childhood album, it was as though we were looking at stamps from different planets. Countries like Aden, Indochina, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Southern Rhodesia, USSR, UAR, Gold Coast, and many more all came and went during the periods covered by the albums.

Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math

In contrast to the rate of progress experienced in my Grandmother's lifetime, Marco Polo saw rockets in 1265 AD. Yet, hundreds of years were to pass before men used them to fly. Why so long? The answer is that STEM was fragmented. They had scientists and mathematicians, but not enough engineers, and that meant that technology was slow in coming. This is a little surprising, as the Roman Empire clearly had engineers. You just have to look at the Coliseum to appreciate this. Why were there so few engineers in the Dark Ages that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. Don't be too quick to conclude that the Dark Ages were caused solely by the decline of the Roman Empire. Weather, or more specifically, climate, also played a role. That will be discussed later.

Progress in the last 250 years was catalyzed by knowing how to use laws of chemistry and physics in what I call the STEM continuum, and having the resources to do so. If you blow up a balloon and release it, it will fly around the room in a perfect demonstration of science, specifically Newton's 3rd Law:

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Air coming out of the balloon is action, and the balloon flitting around the room is the reaction.

Science is the development or discovery of such laws. Science tells you that if you blow enough air back, an airplane will go forward. If its wings push enough air down, an airplane will go up. However, that is just enough information to get you killed if you do not have control. That is where engineering comes into play.

Engineering includes design and fabrication based on established rules of science. Engineering is the application of science and is what makes science useful. An example is the design and manufacture of an airplane's wings and ailerons to provide lift and control, all based on the science of the Principle of the Lever combined with Newton's 3rd Law.

Technology is the output when you combine science and engineering, e.g. an airplane, a bridge.

Math is the language whereby science, technology, and engineering communicate with each other. Math includes equations that are centuries old and computer programs that are still being developed. Examples include π r2 which is the area of a circle, Arm x Force = Moment the equation for the Principle of the Lever, and PV = nRT which reflects the Ideal Gas Law. This brings me to Cause & Effect.

Cause & Effect

While politicians harangue about the off-shoring of jobs, the truth is that far more jobs are lost due to technological obsolescence. The next time you see an ATM ask it how the summer is going. Do not be offended when it doesn't answer. It is a machine, and the jobs of the bank tellers it replaced are not coming back. Similarly, getting a job as a travel agent or manual labor in a car factory would not be good career choices, although being a programmer of the machines that build cars would be. Take politicians with a grain of salt.

Why did the Wright brothers put the elevator (Fig. 1) in front and their propellers and rudder at the back of the 1903 Wright Flyer, and what was the effect of doing so? Why was the elevator of their 1911 Wright Flyer aft with the rudder, where elevators have been for most airplanes ever since?

Analyzing such Cause & Effect issues provides an opportunity to create better designs and overcome paradigm paralysis. To illustrate this point, the Wright brothers had never seen a propeller or rudder anywhere but at the back of a boat, so their paradigm (i.e. a thought pattern or rule that one follows without knowing it) was to put the rudder and propellers where they were in the 1903 Wright Flyer. But they had never seen an elevator, and called theirs a "horizontal rudder". It was logical (per the Lever Principle) to put the elevator in front to balance the "vertical rudder" at the back, or perhaps they wanted a shock absorber in front. Either explanation could have been the "cause". What was the "effect"?

Having the elevator in front was like trying to push a rope. The faster the plane went, the more distortion would occur. Making...