letters...
FEA and Errors
Charles S. Landram, Livermore, Calif.		 To the Editor: Your recommendation that FEA be linked to CAD systems (“Avoiding Analysis Pitfalls,” March), is contrary to my opinion. Incapable FEA users frequently fail to obtain a spatially converged solution, and as a consequence their solutions have huge errors. With such techniques as adaptive meshing and Richardson-like extrapolation, code developers may eventually provide built-in error analyses that may permit a viable CAD-FEA interface to bypass the user faults.

Let’s hope the users, who may not be engineers, are competent enough to understand the errors and know what to do when they become too large. I doubt such users will understand the governing equations, boundary and initial conditions, state equations or material models that the codes are modeling, nor will they understand the compromises to the physical situation inherent in the computational model.

The real question then is who is to take responsibility for the results, especially on designs affecting safety analyses and product liability?

Improving Engineering’s Reputation
Chris K. Mechefske, Melbourne, Australia via ASMENET		 To the Editor: I just read the Editorial “Engineering Corporate America” in the November 1995 issue (it takes a couple of months via surface mail for Mechanical Engineering to make it down here to Australia), and I couldn’t agree more with the idea that engineers need to assume more responsibility in senior management roles. This will not only benefit industry generally but also provide a long-overdue boost to the sagging public opinion of engineers.

In Australia, the engineering field is suffering possibly its lowest university enrollments ever. While some of this decline can be blamed on a manufacturing sector that is growing only modestly, in my opinion most of it should be blamed on the view of the profession held by high school graduates. For the same effort and expense, the best students see a career in professions like law, medicine, and architecture as being more prestigious, more lucrative, and more attractive. High-profile engineers in business would go a long way to changing this trend.

I feel strongly that this profession does not get the credit it deserves, nor are engineers employed in tasks that maximize our contribution to society. As you stated, a step in the right direction would be for engineers to take on the responsibility of corporate leadership and perhaps (dare I suggest it, for I know most engineers will gag at the thought) political leadership.

Movie-Star Robots
Maureen S. Malloy, Norton, Mass.		 To the Editor: I really enjoyed Michael Valenti’s June cover story “A Robot Is Born"-especially the photography. What a wonderful surprise to see a photo of Crow T. Robot from “Mystery Science Theater 3000” on the cover. The article itself deftly addressed the history of robots in film and on television, and it did so with a wonderfully light touch. I agree with the closing opinion that the robots of the future will look more like the Terminator than Tom Servo, but let’s hope their dispositions are more like the bright and witty Servo’s.

I do, however, have one minor clarification to make. Regarding the program “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” Crow and Tom Servo were designed and built by Joel Robinson (played by Joel Hodgson, the show’s creator), not Mike Nelson, the current host, who would have been better described as the ’bots’ human caretaker. I just wanted to give Hodgson the credit he deserves for building such creative-looking robots out of found items.

Thanks again for the well-written and informative story.

Movie-Star Robots II
Hilary Palencar, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.		 To the Editor: I read Michael Valenti’s article “A Robot Is Born” with great interest. It was a primer for anyone interested in the history of robots in film. This summer a book of mine is being released about the TV show “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (Confessions of a Trekaholic, The Borgo Press), and I was curious why Valenti overlooked Data [an android officer on the starship Enterprise]. Having researched this robot-cum-Cyrano, however, I don’t fault the oversight; when women as abrasive as Camille Paglia write love letters to Data in national magazines, something’s out of hand about his hero status.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the informative, well-written article.

A Boost in Belarus
Oleg Martynenko, Belarus		 To the Editor: I am very grateful to receive your valuable journal at the Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute at the Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Your esteemed journal helps the scientists at our institute keep track of the latest events and accomplishments in the field of science and technology as well as helps the progress of science in Belarus.

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© 1996 by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers