(no subject)

[seekingferret]

I had a NASA moment yesterday.

Talking to a supplier about a part he had quoted, I mentioned the "thirteen inch dimension" and he said to me, "Oh, that was in inches? We quoted in millimeters!" Damn glad I happened to talk to him again before ordering.

The price did seem low...


It's amazing. Engineering school impresses upon you the idea of being detail-oriented, but it didn't actually do a good job, in my opinion, of impressing us on what kinds of details that meant. Though I had a calculus professor who never gave partial credit on tests. You either had the right answer or you didn't. Toward the end of the semester, talking to her outside of class, we learned that she had once designed nuclear reactors in Soviet Russia, and suddenly we understood why. After midterms and other tests with grades in the fifties or sixties, virtually all of us aced the final.

It is astonishing how small a mistake can make a part totally unusable, or worse, dangerous to use.

Comments

[zandperl]

Lol, "NASA moment"! Arguably it's a Lockheed Martin moment, IIRC. When I teach the units unit in physics, I always bring up the Mars Climate Orbiter. While it's a bit dated, the pricetag (even in 1999 dollars) that was lost due to a units fuckup is still enough to make students' eyes pop.

[seekingferret]

I've seen it used with students to teach the bizarre lesson "It's important to know the difference between metric and imperial units" rather than the real lesson "It's important that everyone on a project communicate with each other clearly and make sure that the communication is understood."