The Value of Scientists & Engineers

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Determine that the circuit is open, or determine the location of the opening? Either way, I would get a multimeter, and check the voltage across the power source, just to be sure that an opening is the problem. If there's no voltage there, that's the problem, and not an opening. Then I would proceed to inspect the lamp, switch, and circuit breaker to make sure that they're all closed, and if that's all good, then it must be the wiring. Although an opening in the wiring would probably be easily spotted, an approximate location of the opening could be found by using a multimeter to complete the circuit at various points.

You two are making me insanely jealous of all the knowledge you have on circuits. My knowledge is extremely limited. I only know how to make a simple LED circuit with a breadboard.

I am learning a lot from you. I am very interested in circuits and chips. =)

To be honest I was making a generalization based on my observations, I was probably being biased. No you are correct individuals from Ivy league institutions may have practical hands experience in addition to their high marks. I retract my earlier post.

I really don't know all that much about this stuff; that's why I was surprised by cyberdad's comment. I wish I knew a whole lot more than I did about this kind of stuff, I could seriously have a whole lot of fun building robots with breadboards and programming them. The aspie I knew from physics class last year did that and it really sparked my interest. Hmm... it would be strange if he was reading this.

Man, I can't wait to go back to school where I can play around with electronic equipment all day. Those were some good times.

Posting oponions on forums is easy. That's what I did.

In my case I was drawing on my experience of having bright graduates from top universities work with me and drew conclusions based on their lack of experience. I asserted their training was theoretical based and concluded that this explained their lack of hands on experience. While this may be true it does not mean I can generalise this observation to all Ivy league graduates.

... whoa ...



I wish we were in a hiring phase.

Most folks would say, "Replace everything until it works", which often leads to even more damaged parts and a very grumpy supervisor.

My advising professor (ChE) likes to ask these sorts of questions to the sophomore and junior level classes. I remember when I was an undergrad, he gave us a pop quiz one day:

"Every day I walk across the street to get a cup of coffee from Dutch Bros. The other day it was pretty damn cold out, and I wanted my coffee as hot as possible when I got back to my office, but I also want cream in it. So, what should I do to keep my coffee hottest, add the cream in Dutch Bros or my office and why?"

I've heard of a some strange questions big companies ask you nowadays too. One I've heard of from HP's process of hiring engineers is "How many barber shops are there in the US?"

They don't want to know a specific answer, the just want to see the process of how you develop your answer.

This would be hard to answer because I know nothing about coffee, and I know nothing of cream. I don't drink or use any of that.



I would make a guess with the possibility of a wide margin of error. In my town with a population of 30,000, I know there are about ten different barber shops. That means is roughly one barber shop for every 3,000 people. There are at least 315 million people in the United States. Divide 315 million by three thousand. I get that there are at least 105,000 barber shops in the US based on this reasoning.

I am also assuming barber shops mean any place that cuts hair and services all ages and genders.



I love doing this stuff. I'd probably enjoy myself at those type of interviews.

Thanks.



Add in the cream first, so that when you go outside, it stays warm inside the insulated cup.


That's what google is for. But, with the exception of google, I would count up the number of barber shops within the local area and divide that by the local population, then multiply it by the total population of the united states. Although this method might not be totally accurate due to a small sample size.

That's exactly the type of answer they want to see, solving it to your best estimate using the information you have. These are the kinds of jobs where you're going to be woken up at 3 in the morning by one of the assembly line guys asking you why a machine is suddenly creating a silicon wafer 100nm too thick on one side, so you need to have these sorts of troubleshooting skills (you can't Google that).



Yes, but for the wrong reason. To solve it, you need to look at it in the three forms of heat transfer: Conduction, convection, and radiation. Radiation is negligible (as per most everyday cases) and conduction gives off some heat (assuming a well-insulated cup), but nothing in comparison to the heat lost through convection. The main thing that's going to cause a loss of heat is the vaporization of the coffee in the form of steam. Thus, you put in the cream first, which will minimize the amount of steam given off (and thus, the overall heat lost is reduced). If you had waited until you got to your destination, you'd also have less mass, and adding the cream will cool it even more than you would with a greater mass (assuming a constant heat capacity for both liquids). You can also mention that making sure to put a lid on will reduce heat loss even further by cutting off most of the convective heat transfer.

This was actually a question one of his previous students had been asked during a phone interview.