Where Are All the Engineers?

In his March 2008 Reflections column Robert W. Lucky asks, “Why aren't there more of us engineers?” He answers that question a couple of paragraphs later, noting that “industry now spends three times as much on litigation in the United States as it does on research.” Obviously, the demand for lawyers is greater than that for engineers. High school and college students will go where the opportunities lie.

Lucky's observation does raise another question, however. I assume that corporate managers are choosing to spend money on litigation over R&D because the returns are better. The question this raises is whether it is now cheaper to acquire technology through litigation than through research. If so, we are going to continue to see a decline in science and engineering in the United States.

Victor Skowronski

IEEE Member

Woburn, Mass.

Measure for Measure

In “A Plug-in Motorcycle” [Tools & Toys, February 2008], you state that “the Enertia's motor produces 46 newton meters (34 foot-pounds)” of torque. This is a common error committed by those who are not careful with units. The English torque equivalent of newton meters is pound-feet; foot-pounds is an English unit of energy equivalent to the SI (International System) unit of joules. A little further on, you mention “110-volt household current.” This phrase encompasses three errors of usage: 120 volts is household voltage or household service, not household current. Standard household service has not been 110 volts for a long time; it is now a nominal 120 volts, which is actually about 118.6 volts. Finally, in the accepted international convention for units, there is no dash between the number and the unit.

David W. Knudsen

IEEE Life Senior Member

Gray, Maine

The editor responds: The distinction between pound-foot and foot-pound is observed by many but by no means all authorities. The electricity from the wall socket should indeed have been described as household service at 120 volts. The hyphen, however, is correct, because here the phrase “120-volt” serves as an adjective.

Name That Town

I noticed a picture of Alice Springs, Australia, in the article on the World Solar Challenge Race [“Across the Outback on Photons Alone,” February 2008 I was surprised to see that the caption identified the location as Darwin. After living in Alice Springs from 2003 to 2007, I found it easy to pick out some of the highlights of the town—Kmart, Blockbuster, and Eagle Boys Pizza. The car is traveling south on Stuart Highway, turning right onto Larapinta Drive (about 1600 kilometers into the race).

Jeff Bradey

IEEE Senior Member

Norfolk, Va.

A Shot in the Dark

Being an electronics tinkerer, I read with interest and amusement the article “Build Yourself an Electric Gun” [December 2007 The author's first attempt at an electric gun might not be the only thing going “flop”: he really should have spent more time jotting calculations on the back of an envelope.

As it turns out, a 22 000-microfarad capacitor stores a little more than one-fiftieth of a coulomb of electric charge for every volt across its terminals, while the relationship between voltage and stored energy is a quadratic one. A perfectly efficient energy transfer from such a capacitor charged at 20 volts would propel a 25-gram projectile at a whopping 18.8 miles per second. Now that's some serious firepower.

Carlo Concari

IEEE Member

Parma, Italy