tuinkabouter wrote:

On 1/11/2013 11:49 PM, William Sommerwerck wrote:
?? One story goes that Thomas Edison assigned a simple task to a newly
?? hired engineer - calculate the volume of a light bulb. The newbie
?? measured the bulb at the points he felt were critical and spent the
?? afternoon calculating the volume. Edison looked at the numbers and
?? said "You're off by at least 10%". Edison then took the light bulb,
?? drilled a little hole in it, filled it with water, then drained the
?? water into a graduated cylinder. And showed the engineer his numbers
?? were off by 10%.
?
? But Edison measured the inside volume. The engineer calculated the
? outside volume. To proof this, the engineer submerges the light bulb
? and measured the water rise.
? To prove his measurement he measured the force to keep it submerged.
?
? So he proved that Edison was wrong.
? The glass of the bulbs in those times was very thick.
?
?
? You're missing the point of the story. There are ways to measure things
? that are quick and elegant -- rather than applying a brute-force approach.

No. Edison asked the engineer: "calculate the volume of a light bulb".
He did not ask to measure it.

Edition should have asked: "what is the inside volume of this light
bulb". Then the engineer could decide to use other physical means to get
the right answer.


Did Edision remove the support stem that took up part of the voulume,
or is this just another urban legend?

Don't mess with engineers.


What railroad do you work for?