brazilianengineer - Tumblr blog

brazilianengineer · 3 years

Text

When you’re in the middle of procrastinating and suddenly the Will to Work™ hits you

264K notes · View notes

brazilianengineer · 3 years

Text

Nikola Tesla was an inventor, discoverer, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, theoretical and experimental physicist, mathematician, futurist and humanitarian. He was a hyper-polyglot who could speak eight languages including: Serbo-Croatian, English, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, and Latin. He was known to have one of the most remarkable memories, being able to recite full books, poetry and mathematical formulas by heart. He claimed to have had a three-dimensional memory and thought process that tormented him in his youth, but later aided him with building his inventions in his own mind without wasting any physical energy. Tesla was a man who was far ahead of his time, and even our time today. He was the first to discover the rotating magnetic field, and invent and patent a commutatorless alternating current induction motor based off this discovery. All electrical machinery using or generating alternating current is due to Tesla, without which all our electrified power lines, long distance trolley cars, electric vehicles, and our subways would be far less advanced. He is the true father of radio, sending the first radio signals up to 30 miles in distance in experiments at his Houston Street laboratory before its destruction by fire in 1895. He was the first to demonstrate wireless energy/power by lighting his phosphorescent light bulbs wirelessly in a demonstration given before electrical institutes from 1891-1893, and later lit lamps wirelessly at a distance of 25 miles away from his transmitter. In his labs he conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, electrical therapy, and some of the first X-ray imaging. Tesla was also the first to demonstrate remote control, building a wireless controlled boat first exhibited in 1898. At Colorado Springs in 1899, he created artificial lightning bolts 100 feet long, and sent currents around the Earth with a mean velocity of 292,815 miles per second with his transmitter patented in 1900. Some of his greatest experiments and demonstrations have yet to be reproduced by even our greatest scientists today. Although not recognized for, he was the first to discover the electron, radioactivity, terrestrial resonance, stationary waves (standing waves), and cosmic rays, which he also recorded traveling many times faster than light. His life long work was a dynamic theory of gravity that explained the causes of gravitation and the motions of heavenly bodies, which he claimed had been worked out in all details and he hoped to give it to the world. He was so satisfied with his theory that he believed it would put an end to the “idle speculations and false conceptions” rooted from Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. All his ideas and discoveries were logical inferences based off knowledge from his many years of investigations, experiments and developments in science and radio technology. Tesla predicted television, the internet, smart phones, weather control, interplanetary communication, an idea to produce an artificial Aurora Borealis to light the night skies, a particle beam to be used for defense in war, and the transmission of wireless power to any point on the globe. He intended to unify all these innovations into one big machine known as his Magnifying Transmitter, or his World System, but lacked the investments and funds to finish and prove his work on a large scale. Tesla would eventually die penniless and alone in his New York apartment, but like all the greats throughout history he lives on through all his inventions and contributions to this world.

“Let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine.” –Nikola Tesla

260 notes · View notes

brazilianengineer · 3 years

Note

yooo how do u email a prof for a recommendation letter?

Hi Professor!

I am in the process of applying to ____ and they require letters of rec. I sincerely enjoyed your classes, and felt that they gave me a particularly good chance to display my strengths, such as ____ [class participation, writing, etc.] and would love for you to write me a letter, if you’d be willing. The due date is ____, and I can send you further instructions for submission later if you accept.

Attached to this email is ____, the piece of work I did in your class which best showcases my abilities, as well as my current CV [or resume]. If you agree to write me a letter, soon I will also send you drafts of my ____ [statement of purpose, personal statement, application essays, other relevant material] for my application to aid in your writing. I am also happy to meet in person to discuss this with you.

I want to stress that this application is quite competitive, so if you feel you will not be able to write me a strong letter then I completely understand - but please let me know. Thank you so much for your time!

Sincerely, ____

—

a few notes:

- you should have all your relevant materials (app essays, etc.) sent to them *at least* a month in advance to give them ample time to write the letter

- thus, your initial email asking them if they’d be willing to write a letter for you should be sent *over* a month in advance. professors are busy

- if you are applying for a really prestigious position/scholarship/fellowship, or grad school, it’s best to have at least a majority of your letter writers be professors (rather than adjuncts or post docs). ideally you’d want them to be full/tenured professors. in lots of cases, especially academic ones, *who* writes your letter matters - not just *what’s in* your letter

- the reason you send them the piece of work you did in their class that you are most proud of is to remind them of your abilities as a student and the quality of the work you produced for them. they have lots of students. sometimes they need a bit of help jogging their memory of exactly what you did in their class.

- the reason you send them your other application materials (personal statement, statement of purpose, CV) is so that they have information to draw from when writing your letter. they know what you’re passionate about, what you hope to do in the future, other experience you have, and can use this information when writing your letter

- on a similar note, this is also why you’d want to list the strengths you displayed in their class

- basically, you want to give them as much information as you can about your strengths, goals, and intentions - give them prompts they can use to write your letter

- the bit at the end about asking for a “strong letter” is important because some professors can only write you mediocre letters (e.g. “this student was always on time to class and gave their undivided attention during lecture” - what does this tell admission committees? well, it tells them that the professor has nothing positive to say about your *academic* abilities and so they’re resorting to other strengths. it’s a polite way of saying “this student was okay, but not spectacular in any notable way”. big red flag for admissions committees.) if all you’re going to get is a mediocre letter, you might as well not get a letter at all

- if the professor you ask accepts, then be sure to send them polite reminders as the date approaches. (i usually send a reminder at the 1-month-till-due-date mark when i send the other application materials, and then again at the 2 week and 1 week marks, and, if necessary, every day after the final 3 days leading up to the due date

—

i know this was a lot, but i remember being in your shoes and being completely lost when it came to applying for stuff so i know how daunting it can be. i figured i’d just throw all this information at you to be of as much help as possible.

for reference, i’ve applied to graduate programs, fellowships, and scholarships. i have been accepted into several of the top 10 graduate programs in my area, as well as received multiple scholarships and a fellowship, and received honorable mentions for some of the most competitive fellowships in the US. i have also worked with the admissions committee at my graduate program to organize multiple informational events for those interested in applying to graduate school and, in the process, have learned a lot about what makes a strong application.

so while you should absolutely take my advice with a grain of salt (different circumstances call for different standards), i do have quite a bit of experience with applications and what makes a strong letter of rec.

i hope this helped! best of luck with whatever you’re applying for :)

9K notes · View notes

brazilianengineer · 4 years

Text