Category: Memoirs of James Pate Williams Jr

Tonight, I was dining at Country’s BBQ in the first booth. After eating my salad, I noticed a blue-green discoloration on my table near the condiment area of the booth. I assumed the crystals were formed by Copper (II) acetate hydrate (C4H6CuO4)*H2O. I surmised that the copper table-top reacted with vinegar (a good source of acetic acid).

A Northrup P-61 Black Widow drop tank can hold 310 US gallons of high-octane gasoline. The P-61 can carry two to four drop tanks. 310 US gallons weighs 310 gallons * 6.1 pounds = 1,891 pounds. So, the contents of four drop tanks weigh 1,891 pounds * 4 = 7,564 pounds. Neglecting the weight of the drop tank itself, a single P-61 could dump over 3 tons (one US ton = 2,000 pounds) in drop tanks onto friendly or enemy territory. I wonder just how many people were killed by objects ejected prematurely from bombers and fighters in World War II.

03-04-2009 Math Grades at Georgia Tech (1980 – 1983)

The applied numerical analysis that I have been doing lately reminds of my not-so-great experience at Georgia Tech in 1980 to 1983. In that long bygone era, I was an untreated schizophrenic later diagnosed as bipolar undergoing some pretty difficult times. I was having some strangely seriously disabling delusions about the CIA and other branches of the federal government. As I have probably stated in other slide presentations on this site, perhaps even too many times, I knew I was delusional, but I could not stop dwelling on these fictitious thoughts. Anyway, I miraculously was able to take and complete a few senior level engineering or math major math courses and three graduate level math courses. Here are the courses and my grades:

MATH 4582 – Advanced Engineering Mathematics – B, 3 Quarter Hours

MATH 4347 – Partial Differential Equations – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4583 – Vector Analysis – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4320 – Complex Analysis – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4338 – Partial Differential Equations – A, 3 Hours

MATH 6581 – Calculus of Variations – A, 3 Hours

MATH 4640 – Scientific Computing I – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4311 – Introduction to Analysis I – C, 4 Hours

MATH 6341 – Partial Differential Equations I – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4312 – Introduction to Analysis II – B, 4 Hours

MATH 6342 – Partial Differential Equations – D, 3 Hours

I have perhaps legitimate excuses for the C and D. I failed to show up for one of my analysis tests and I received a 0. In the PDE course in which I made a D, I failed to do a term computer project, because I temporarily lost access to LaGrange College’s DG Eclipse minicomputer, and I was scared to death of the CDC Cyber mainframe on the GT campus. I had a CDC FORTRAN manual, but I had no training with the CDC Compass OS. Also, I don’t remember if the DG Eclipse in the chemistry x-ray crystallography lab had either a BASIC interpreter or Fortran or Pascal compilers.

A-grades at GT in those days were very hard to get. I can’t remember whether my introduction to Bessel functions and Legendre polynomials was in MATH 4582 or MATH 4338. I had not taken a formal ordinary differential equations course at LaGrange College, but I was an autodidact (self-taught person) in that area of advanced enginneering mathematics.

I think I could take an applied numerical analysis or partial differential equation course at any institution of higher learning today and do fairly well.

03-04-2009 CHEM 6151 1982 Georgia Tech

I took CHEM 6151 X-Ray Crystallography in the winter of 1982 under the Head of the Chemistry Department. The professor was a top-notched x-ray crystallographer and researcher. Anyway, I wound up with a B in the course since I did not do the optional actual x-ray crystallography analysis of a previously unknown crystal structure. A true chemical, physical, and mathematical genius who had 4.0 averages at Tech both as an undergraduate and graduate student did very well on his crystal and, of course, made an A in the course. This guy was studying nuclear chemistry, and he could easily unravel and decipher any type of spectral data whether it was done by alpha, beta, or gamma spectroscopy, IR, mass, NMR, UV, or visible spectroscopy. I could with great difficulty analyze some spectral data, but I was not even marginally as proficient as the genius.

Again, I think I was afraid of the x-ray crystallography equipment since I thought the government could use spurious x-rays to read my thoughts. I could have used an aluminum hat to deflect the x-rays, but I was even too paranoid for that insane gesture.

03-06-2009 Bailout Insanity

I voted for President Obama, and I really don’t think I had any other viable option with the exception of a vote for the unelectable Ralph Nader. I do wonder about the sanity of the financial sector bailout initiated by former President Bush (good riddance) to the tune of $350 billion out of $700 billion available and also the most recent economic stimulus package signed by President Obama. All these “bailouts or stimuli” are very reminiscent of the desperate measures taken by FDR during the onset of the great depression. Don’t get me wrong, I like FDR a lot, but the massive public works programs he started were nothing more than a somewhat ineffective economic band-aid. It took the Imperialistic Japanese and the mentally ill Nazis with WWII to really recover to a certain extent our economy. Then there was the great economic bust immediately following WWII when the factories geared down production from the peak WWII levels, released all the highly skilled female employees, and the large number of armed services personnel returned to no jobs. Only the GI bill, Marshall Plan, and other ingenious economic downturn countermeasures saved us for the baby booming times of the late 1940s and early 1950s. You can’t just wantonly throw federal money at a set of serious economic problems without some very long term strategic as well as tactical planning. Just creating a lot of construction jobs is a 1930s approach and inherently destabilizing today. As the old actor (“Water World” villain whose name evades me) states in a television commercial about retirement: “You have to have a plan”. Well, I don’t think either the former President, current President, or Congress really has long range plan and what we are looking at now is a lot of panic, put your finger in the dike thinking.

P. S. Fortunately, for me, President Bush enacted the second tier of unemployment benefits that I am collecting for about the next 10 or so weeks.

P. S. S. I thought the pundits said that the bottom of the stock market was at the INDU level of 7,000 now it is about 6,500. AFLAC stock has lost almost 5/6’s of its peak value about last March. Google has lost over half its stock value. We have similar situations with Amazon and Apple stocks. The technology stocks are still better off than the financial related stocks with Bank of America stock worth less than a $1.00 a share. In LaGrange, Georgia, U. S., the January unemployment rate was over 14%, a hefty increase from 6.7% a year ago. My county, Troup County’s unemployment rate was 12.2% up from 10.3% in December 2008 and 6.7% in December 2007. These are the scariest economic times that I can remember. I am ready to be a greeter at WAL-MART, if and only if, I can get the job.