National Engineering Week: Why math counts

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  As a journalist, my professional need for math is relatively limited, especially with some of the newest computational tools that are available.

And trust me, my math skills are limited. My father was a physicist and astronomer and my sister has a doctorate in geology and is a college science professor. I didn't inherit the family's math and science genes.

It is part of my job to interview engineers about a test on a turbine engine in a test cell or aircraft model in a wind tunnel and write an article on these topics in a way that a layman can grasp, without a dictionary, calculator and engineering degree.

As a public affairs technical writer at the world's largest complex of flight simulation testing facilities, I rely on the experts to help me make sense of what goes on here.

I fully appreciate the importance of mastering engineering, especially as so many U.S. corporations seem to be outsourcing jobs requiring technical skills to countries like China and India.

My engineering colleagues at AEDC acknowledge that only a very limited number of young people in the U.S. will seek engineering degrees, let alone pursue it as a career.

So, where are AEDC's future engineers and technicians going to come from? Who will be available to conduct testing on future space and weapons systems for the nation?

The answer is you have to start with math.

National Engineers Week will take place Feb. 21-23, but will kick off with a MATHCOUNTS competition Feb. 11 at the Manchester/Coffee County Conference Center with Richard Dix, a retired AEDC engineer, hosting the event.

I was especially curious about MATHCOUNTS, how it fits into the bigger picture for National Engineers Week and the engineering profession in general.

Harry Clark, a facility integration manager for information technology in XPR, is the Tennessee State Coordinator for MATHCOUNTS.

He described math as a "problem solving tool" necessary for young people to master before they can actually consider a science-oriented career. Clark explained that the annual MATHCOUNTS competition is aimed at middle school students and engages them in a challenging and fun way to solve three sets of increasingly difficult problems. In the first set, the "mathletes" must solve 30 problems in 40 minutes without the aid of a calculator.

My head is already in pain just thinking about solving some quadratic equation veiled in a convoluted-sounding word problem, especially without a calculator and sneaking a call to an engineer on my cell phone.

Let me put it this way, my wife and I are raising a 16-year-old grandson whose constant refrain is "I hate Algebra Two." We have our work cut out for us.

The theme for National Engineers Week this year is "7,000,000,000 people, 7 billion dreams, and 7 billion chances for engineers to turn ideas into reality."

I really love this theme, but if I tried to turn some of my ideas for an invention into reality, I'd be struggling, because I never did master mathematics. So, I am not among the seven billion in this scenario.

Even if you are not interested in science, math or engineering, it pays to support our educational system and help young people become competent in the basics. Better yet, it also pays huge dividends to encourage those secondary students who are drawn to math to take it as far as possible.

Otherwise, we would never have had the expertise at AEDC for more than 60 years who tested everything from the Apollo spacecraft to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and helped turn complex concepts into reality.

By expertise, I mean people, men and women, who turned their passion for math and science from ideas into realities.

Which brings me back to the question, where are all of AEDC's future engineers going to come from?

The answer is it starts with every one of us by supporting math and science education. Yes, math does count and, as Harry Clark says, "It's fun."

To learn more about Engineer's Week events and how you can help promote math and science, as either a mentor or in other ways, contact Harry Clark at 931-454-4495.