All of Enoch Root's Comments + Replies

Reversible/Carnot cycles in heat engines are a theoretical model that describe a system with perfect efficiency within each of the cycles. The Carnot heat engine is a model used in Thermodynamics 1 to introduce heat engines to students. The point of this is to allow students to focus on the four constituent cycles of the heat engine without worrying about tracking inefficiencies. It is, of course, impossible to design a heat engine that is operating at perfect efficiency with perfect reversibility. 

 

Your are correct in your assumption that the Ca... (read more)

I believe that you are correct in your observations regarding graduate level education. Allow me to offer my experiences in undergrad engineering:

In my undergraduate experience, I was of the opinion that a lot of professors simply didn't bother to put in any effort. Countless times I would visit a professor's office to be met with the physical manifestation of executive functioning deficits. Frankly, I expected better from professors who required that their students stay on top of 18 credit hours of engineering courses every semester. I sometimes would hop... (read more)

9JenniferRM
Exploring academia a bit (4 institutions for my bachelors, then 2 more doing boring but useful stuff in labs surrounded by PhDs), my rough impression is that the best teachers are adjuncts at low prestige colleges.  They tend to love their subject and relish the opportunity to teach smart people who are hungry to know things in their area.  The fact that they are wasting their life and talents on a job that pays relatively little, and is insecure, and isn't very high status... doesn't bother them much because they just love teaching the subject.
5alkjash
We are using the word "coast" differently - what I meant by coasting is that many of the professors I know would have to actively sabotage their own research groups and collaborators to not produce ~five nice papers a year (genuine though perhaps not newsworthy contributions to the state of knowledge).  Of course, the state of affairs seriously varies with the quality of the institution.

I could see this working in a joint venture type of situation, but it fundamentally conflicts with the "work to live" philosophy. If I was a member of a research team in my profession (Mechanical Engineering) and this situation was proposed for a R&D group, I would adamantly oppose it. Collaborative working, in my experience, is inefficient. It makes much more sense to compartmentalize work, then upon completion, combine modules into a finished product. A certain amount of communication is required, but the process in not encumbered with meetings and g... (read more)