Thinking sideways
Brad Thompson, Contributing Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 10/1/2004
Unlike used-car salespeople and farmer's daughters, test and measurement professionals rarely find themselves the objects of jokes. You'll never hear one about three engineers who find themselves stuck in an elevator, nor one about the EMI consultant's daughter and the traveling metal-mesh gasket salesman. In fact, I can recall exactly one T&M-related joke: A professor administered an oral exam to a metrology student. "Given a precisely calibrated barometer, how would you use it to determine the height of a tall building?" asked the professor.
"I'd attach a rope to the barometer, suspend it from the ceiling of a ground-floor room, and measure the period of oscillation of the resultant pendulum. Then I'd repeat the process on the roof and calculate the height from the difference between values of the oscillation periods," replied the student.
"That's not the method I had in mind. Can you think of another?" asked the professor.
"Well, on a windless day I'd drop the barometer from the roof and measure the time it took to hit the ground. Then I'd solve the equation S = 1/2 (at^2)," said the student.
"You're in danger of failing unless you describe another method," warned the professor.
"Of course! It's obvious now that I think of it. I'd knock on the building superintendent's door and say, 'Sir, I'll give you this fine barometer if you tell me the height of this building,'" answered the student.
You, the reader, can assign a grade, but I'd give the student an A for lateral thinking.
Although this anecdote pokes fun at a professor who couldn't envision unconventional solutions, sometimes thinking laterally will solve a problem faster and better than conventional methods.
For examples, see how a remotely controlled DVD player, a TV receiver, and a microcontroller-driven infrared remote control can serve as a display system complete with animation and audio tracks (see "Contest winner 1," at right). Or, build your own infrared-reflow soldering machine for the laboratory from a toaster oven and a microcontroller (see "Contest winner 2").
If thinking sideways has bailed you out of a messy measurement or helped you stretch your test-and-measurement budget and you'd like to share your ideas with our readers, e-mail us at tmw@reedbusiness.com. And if you've heard any good T&M jokes, send them, too.
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