Not a worry, but the little pink symbol beneath my profile info is usually a clue ...
It it good to know some of your background Skategy, for some reason I thought you were younger ... :3oops:
Your Erector set is what we call "Meccano" over here ... brilliant toy, and although I get what you are saying about its ability to teach some basic engineering principles, that is only if it is explained to you as well.
You can build some pretty impossible in the real world, shapes with it ... so unless you have had the added explanation and teaching you may well have a distorted or flawed understanding !!!
For myself, I trained as a Dental Surgeon through the RAF (Royal Air Force) and matriculated through the Scottish University system ... and although a medical field you still had to have training in engineering principles, particularly mechanical ... as well as various military field medicine skills, as being classed non-combatent you still had to train for being called upon, a bit like your MASH hospital stuff !!!
In applied dentistry you still need to understand engineering, although on a micro-scale ... cantilevers, abutments, pressure, stress, pivots, fracturing, etc ... e.g your TMJ (temporomandibular joint) or jaw bone is a double-hinge joint, allowing for anterior/posterior and lateral movement !!!
Measuring and manufacturing a dental bridge is not strictly just a medical proceedure, but also an engineering feat in minature !!!
So although having spend my career in micro, I can still scale-up and apply those principles ... and I think that is where many people go wrong ...
they
cannot scale-up ... so to them common sense tells them that something twice the size is twice as strong, when that is not strictly true.
To use a dental analogy ... the bite FORCE exerted by the human jaw can be averaging around 160 lbs of pressure, with it at maximum, in some cases, at over 970 lbs, with the incisors maxing out at 34/5 lbs !!!
Whilst bite PRESSURE can be up to over 5,000 psi !!!
Now, in people who grind their teeth, that can INCREASE by factors of 7 to 10times that ... but do they, therefore, "need" to be 7 to 10 times bigger to do it ???
Well, obviously, that's a no ... and yet that is what many people are arguing regarding this, applying what to
them may be common sense rules, but they count for nothing unless you truly and fully understand the differences between exponential, linear and logarithmic measurments, etc.
As a 9/11 related example let's use the Boeing 707 which was the aircraft used to calculate the impact forces in the 1964 study of the Towers.
And even IF the 767 which hit on 9/11 was the
exact same size and weight the as the 707, the simple fact that is was travelling faster INCREASES the damage.
Now, how many people here would know, automatically, that even for an object the exact same weight and mass ... by doubling the speed(velocity) you QUADRUPLE the kinetic energy !!!
So the exact same object, by just DOUBLING velocity would impact with FOUR TIMES more energy as before !!!
Just like your bullet in my other post ... whether in your hand or a chamber it has the same weight and mass but by "changing" velocity you "change" the levels of damage ... simple stuff ...
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As a funny aside ... our nursing service in the RAF is known as PMRAFNS (Princess Marys' Royal Air Force Nursing Service) an acronym which we renamed Pull My RAF Nickers Sideways !!!
How naughty ... :3oops:
Btw, we still have travelling Journeymen from Germany, who travel all over, for just over 3 years, developing their various skills until the level of Master Craftsman, known as Wandergesellen.
They are the best, they are meticulous at everything, even down to time-keeping and cleanliness, they have to wear an old-fashioned uniform, are not allowed to marry during the apprenticeship, yet must kiss (nicely) every woman they meet and are incredibly polite ... so if ever you are building a house !!!
Presse - Rechtschaffene Fremde Maurer- und Steinhauergesellen
Journeymen find their way to Estonia