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Re: A Machine Shop?





That is not the only change. Your grand-parents knew how to take care of
horses, how to plough, how to preserve certain foods, etc. Today our
agricultural products are extracted by less than 5% of people. And many of
them know more about chemical than about natural fertelizers. It has been
my impression that the degree of self-sufficiency has been decreasing
gradually, for better or worst, everywhere. Look at electronics, is it
the same as it used to be? It is often dominated by interchangeable boards,
operational amplifiers and elements which are too small to see and too
complex to think about, except in functional terms. How many of us can
explain or build computers?


This is a very sad commentary about attitudes in the U.S. I myself grew up
on a farm which gave me some mechanical knowledge and experience, and I had
more training as a part of my undergraduate engineering education. AS a
result, I figure that the time it took me to complete my doctoral research
may have been shortened by at least a year because I was able to do a major
amount of the machine shop work that was necessary for the apparatus that I
needed. Others had to wait in the queue for the machinist to get to it.

I am in a small department which shares machine shop, wood working, and
electronic repair facilities with the chemistry department. Before we were
allowed to hire a technician, I and my students made extensive use of the
shop equipment. My advise is to keep the shop.

Roger

A pharmacist used to be able to prepare drugs from simple components, today
s/he is often a clerk.

Ludwik Kowalski


Your pharmacist because of his/her training probably knows more about the
effects of these drugs on the human body than your physician.

Roger
Roger A. Pruitt, PhD
Professor of Physics
Fort Hays State University
Hays, KS 67601