In striking contrast to today's emphasis on "the elemental" and the mastery of fundamentals, more surveys are indicating that engineers aren't sufficiently grounded in the basics of the areas they're deemed experts in. A recent survey by E-T-A Circuit Breakers (Chicago), for example, reveals that most design engineers who specify circuit breakers don't understand the basics of circuit protection!
Over the last few years, I've seen similar results from surveys on EMI protection, resistors, capacitors and transformers. That's alarming, because those power areas themselves are basic in nature. The surveys prompt me to ask myself how much of the basics I should be presenting to my readers and the visitors to our Web sites.
The claim by E-T-A of the shortfall in knowledge seems a bit strong, but only about 10 percent of 882 respondents, the company says, were able to correctly answer the quiz's five basic questions, and less than half answered three right.
It seems to me that the typical engineer should have been able to answer four questions correctly, and with some intelligent guessing and a bit of experience, all five. Not only for circuit breakers, but for any basic area in power as well. With specialization today being what it is, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised at the survey results. Then again, such a system of inverted knowledge has the tail wagging the dog-always a dangerous proposition.
Big gaps in knowledge, and in areas one wouldn't expect, have always been the case in the technical fields. But it seems more evident today. Indeed, throughout our careers many of us have discussed some fellow engineer who had the think-tank capabilities of a Nobel Prize winner but didn't know which end of a soldering iron to hold.
In the past, I've had some spirited discussions with my editors relating to feature articles and the breakpoint that separates informing the reader vs. talking down to him or her. We're an engineering-oriented newspaper, so I've approached the articles mostly from a midlevel starting point, supplemented with applications notes to discuss the practical-but usually not the ground-level-side of things. Now, I think it's time to revise that view a bit. Where appropriate, future articles in power will generally include a sidebar that addresses fundamental terms and the basics of the area under discussion. Just to make sure we're all on the same page.
What do you think? E-mail me at 103520.355@compuserve.com
RSS
RSS| 
Digital| 
Mobile
