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Brain Teaser Challenge - August

Sorry I missed a month with the BTC. My biggest vice is that I volunteer too much, and my volunteer work has been dominating my time. I guess this column is one of my volunteer jobs, now that I think about it. Anyway, some folks have asked me to mention that one of my big volunteer jobs is as the new international chair of the Humanitarian Technology Challenge, Reliable Electricity Committee. This project is sponsored by the United Nations Foundation and the IEEE. We are a large group of volunteer professionals and academicians who are dedicated to finding better ways to help people in need by the application of technology. These could be disaster victims or people who have never had infrastructure of any kind. Lighting, better food and water, communications, and better medical care are among our objectives.

I was recently asked about consulting on a project to collect deuterium from the ocean. We all know that deuterium is found in much higher concentrations in the sea than in the atmosphere. Perhaps the heavier molecules find it harder to make the transition from liquid to gas phase on the surface, so most of the evaporation is of the lighter isotopes. So the problem today is - how big a container do I need to hold 1 mole of H2 at STP? Don't light a match.

Reply to Butch Shadwell at b.shadwell@ieee.org (email), 904-410-9751 (fax), 904-410-9750 (v), 3308 Queen Palm Dr., Jacksonville, FL 32250-2328. (http://www.shadtechserv.com) The names of correct respondents may be mentioned in the solution column.

Brain Teaser Challenge - "June"

I attended a conference recently at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, called the Humanitarian Technology Challenge. It was sponsored by the IEEE and the United Nations Foundation, among others. The objective was to organize volunteers from around the world to come up with better ways to apply technology to relieving human suffering.

Even though I am not really a power guy, I found myself engaged in a number conversations about power quality. We were talking about the amount of energy that gets converted to heat from harmonic distortion of the power waveform. Your challenge this month, should you choose to accept it, is to explain why most of the harmonic energy you find on the power mains is in the odd harmonics of the fundamental?


Reply to Butch Shadwell at b.shadwell@ieee.org (email), 904-410-9751 (fax), 904-410-9750 (v), 3308 Queen Palm Dr., Jacksonville, FL 32250-2328. (http://www.shadtechserv.com) The names of correct respondents may be mentioned in the solution column.

The Open Channel for Summer 2009

Front Page Tidewater Science Fair
Page 2 From the Chair
Page 3 IEEE Energy Policy Fly in to Capital
Hill
Page 3 IEEE Job Site Redesign
Page 3 Educator Conference Participation
Page 4 IEEE HR PES Update
Page 4 Brain Teaser—June 2009

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Brain Teaser Challenge - "May"

I just got back from the international science and engineering fair in Reno a couple of weeks ago. What an amazing event! This was my third one in a row and it never fails to impress me. The really impressive part is not that the projects are so technically advanced, though many are, it is that these 1500 kids from all over the globe are so uniformly wonderful. Great looking kids, very polite, articulate, most of whom for which English is not the first language, it is amazing. In my opinion there is no other event that so clearly demonstrates that there is great hope for the human race. And even though every one is a fierce competitor, they consistently look after each other and help each other when they can.

I helped to escort ten kids from my community to the fair. As you can imagine I took a lot of pictures and HD video. Most images and video stored and reproduced digitally, such as JPEG and MPEG, use a lossy type of data compression. This is accomplished through a mathematical transform that converts the image information into coefficients of sinusoids at various frequencies. Can you name this mathematical transform?


Reply to Butch Shadwell at b.shadwell@ieee.org (email), 904-410-9751 (fax), 904-410-9750 (v), 3308 Queen Palm Dr., Jacksonville, FL 32250-2328. (http://www.shadtechserv.com) The names of correct respondents may be mentioned in the solution column.