Honorary Rocket Scientist am I
Oh! And I did something that made me really proud of myself. I have a total complex in regards to my mathematical skills. My junior high math teachers maintained I was a smarty, but upon entering high school I flunked my first semester of algebra and struggled through the retaking, barely passing. Geometry I flew through and did a good job, however having fulfilled the mathematic credits I needed, given the experiences I had with algebra and the fact I would be taking another class with kids a year younger then myself, I didn't proceed to trigonometry, algebra two or physics. I've always assumed that, well, you can't have it all and I just sucked at math.
Fast forward ten years to my current position at WB. In anticipation of our new satellite going up, the company held a "tech forum", basically a seminar regarding the launch and technology that went into getting a satellite into geosynchronous orbit. Our in house rocket scientist gave a power point presentation regarding the math involved in such a herculean process, he did a really good job of presenting it and by the end I felt like I might, actually, have a grasp on the elementary mathematics behind rocket science. Prior to the presentation itself he presented us with an article from the American journal of Neuroscience stating that rocket scientists weren't as smart as neurosurgeons, and that to test the theory he was going to give us a homework assignment that, after the presentation we should all be able to complete. He upped the stakes by letting us know he had a $100 gift certificate to a local steakhouse and that whomever e-mailed him the correct answers to his homework by six AM the following Tuesday would be the recipient of said gift card, if there was more then one correct response there would be a drawing.
I decided I was going to do it. Kind of funny, I talked to a few people who attempted it after the fact and they said it was too hard and had given up. . . once I decided i was going to do it, giving up wasn't an option, the only question in my mind was how correct my answers would be. The basic gist is that he gave us the data for thrust, delta force and weight of a personal satellite we recieved from walmart for our birthdays and had us calculate the weight of the chemical fuel we would need to get it into orbit, the weight of the plasma fuel we would need to perform a Hohlman orbit transfer to get it into geosynchronous orbit, how many seconds we would have to burn to perform that, and how much fuel we would need for basic stationkeeping with 5 kg residual given that the satellite had a 20 year life expectancy. Basically you have to reverse engineer that and start with stationkeeping fuel + weight of satellite, because those weights dictate how much fuel you will need to get it into geosynchronous orbit, and the weight of the stationkeeping fuel, orbit transfer fuel and satellite dictate how much fuel you will need to get the thing off the ground and into orbit in the first place.
So I spent an entire DAY working out the equations. I used the scientific buttons on my windows calculator, even, something I have never done before, and, at the end of the day Monday, my brain numb, submitted my answers.
And was right. Only four people even submitted answers, of those four three were right. The other three folks were in the engineering department, one of whom had incorrect answers. Because so few people even made the attempt although there the seminar had over 100 attendees, it was decided we would all get something. One of the engineers had calculated to the 100th decimal place and submitted a detailed hard copy of his work complete with equations and was spot on, he got the 100 gift certificate. I showed my work and equations in my typical piece meal kind of way and had problems with the natural algorithm part of the equations, IE I knew how to apply it but not how to un-apply it to solve for the variable, however I was able to plug in my numbers and keep applying the algorithm until I had the correct answers to the closest 10th decimal place. The other gentleman was an engineer but had solved to tens as well, we both got $50 gift certificates for Olive Garden, and the engineer who was incorrect got one for $25 for making the effort. Given all other parties who attempted had advance degrees in engineering, I was terribly pleased with myself and several people have taken to calling me "the rocket scientist." Hee!
Fast forward ten years to my current position at WB. In anticipation of our new satellite going up, the company held a "tech forum", basically a seminar regarding the launch and technology that went into getting a satellite into geosynchronous orbit. Our in house rocket scientist gave a power point presentation regarding the math involved in such a herculean process, he did a really good job of presenting it and by the end I felt like I might, actually, have a grasp on the elementary mathematics behind rocket science. Prior to the presentation itself he presented us with an article from the American journal of Neuroscience stating that rocket scientists weren't as smart as neurosurgeons, and that to test the theory he was going to give us a homework assignment that, after the presentation we should all be able to complete. He upped the stakes by letting us know he had a $100 gift certificate to a local steakhouse and that whomever e-mailed him the correct answers to his homework by six AM the following Tuesday would be the recipient of said gift card, if there was more then one correct response there would be a drawing.
I decided I was going to do it. Kind of funny, I talked to a few people who attempted it after the fact and they said it was too hard and had given up. . . once I decided i was going to do it, giving up wasn't an option, the only question in my mind was how correct my answers would be. The basic gist is that he gave us the data for thrust, delta force and weight of a personal satellite we recieved from walmart for our birthdays and had us calculate the weight of the chemical fuel we would need to get it into orbit, the weight of the plasma fuel we would need to perform a Hohlman orbit transfer to get it into geosynchronous orbit, how many seconds we would have to burn to perform that, and how much fuel we would need for basic stationkeeping with 5 kg residual given that the satellite had a 20 year life expectancy. Basically you have to reverse engineer that and start with stationkeeping fuel + weight of satellite, because those weights dictate how much fuel you will need to get it into geosynchronous orbit, and the weight of the stationkeeping fuel, orbit transfer fuel and satellite dictate how much fuel you will need to get the thing off the ground and into orbit in the first place.
So I spent an entire DAY working out the equations. I used the scientific buttons on my windows calculator, even, something I have never done before, and, at the end of the day Monday, my brain numb, submitted my answers.
And was right. Only four people even submitted answers, of those four three were right. The other three folks were in the engineering department, one of whom had incorrect answers. Because so few people even made the attempt although there the seminar had over 100 attendees, it was decided we would all get something. One of the engineers had calculated to the 100th decimal place and submitted a detailed hard copy of his work complete with equations and was spot on, he got the 100 gift certificate. I showed my work and equations in my typical piece meal kind of way and had problems with the natural algorithm part of the equations, IE I knew how to apply it but not how to un-apply it to solve for the variable, however I was able to plug in my numbers and keep applying the algorithm until I had the correct answers to the closest 10th decimal place. The other gentleman was an engineer but had solved to tens as well, we both got $50 gift certificates for Olive Garden, and the engineer who was incorrect got one for $25 for making the effort. Given all other parties who attempted had advance degrees in engineering, I was terribly pleased with myself and several people have taken to calling me "the rocket scientist." Hee!