“Do you know what happens when you put a red LED to a 9 volt battery?”
This is the first thing the other intern said to me as he walked in this morning. Of course I wanted to see what happened. Knowing that the normal drop for a red LED is about 2.5V, and given the tone of his voice, I knew it would be interesting. Sure enough the LED sheared at the junction. His original plan had been to see if the problem with his tester was the green LED or the switch. He used a 9V battery to test it because it was available. The interesting result was the green LED gave off an orange light. This naturally made him wonder what would happen if he applied 9V to other colored LEDs. Hence the sheared and slightly melted red LED.
This episode highlights a difference in people: Wonderers versus the Accepters.
Accepters take things they know and liberally apply them to the unknown. If the house is white on two sides I accept that it should be white all around and therefore I assume it is.
Wonderers start out from a place of unknowing.
I say Accepters and Wonderers like they are set personalities, as if you are doomed either to take the world at face value or to be always peering beneath the surface, trying to find out the inner workings.
In reality it is more like the angel and the devil that sits on shoulders of cartoon characters. Sometimes we instinctively ask questions and dissect things to learn more about them. Other times we approach a complicated problem and think we understand it after one look.
I am constantly reminding myself to go back and run programs several times, not once, before I think I know how they work.
Sometimes we need a boost like those helpful plaques in science museums getting you started asking questions like, “What happens if you put a flat piece of paper in an airstream? A cone? A cylinder? What if you oscillate the airstream?”
They help us unlock the curious child in each of us. This is key. Start asking questions and the attitude often spills over into other projects until you are intrigued at each new test.
One part of becoming an engineer is making a habit of asking questions to prime your inner Wonderer.
My name is Caroline Storm Westenhover. I am a Senior Electrical Engineering student at the University of Texas at Arlington. I am the third of seven children. I enjoy collecting ideas and theories and most enjoy when they come together to present a bigger picture as a whole. Perhaps that is why I like physics and engineering. My biggest dream is to become an astronaut.