In keeping with the season and to insure beginning EMC engineers I recite, with editorial license, Church’s response to Virginia O’Hanlon.
Virginia- I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no EMC and that it is Black Magic. Papa says, “If you see it on the emc-pstc, it’s so.” Please tell me the truth, is EMC Black Magic? - Virginia O’Hanlon Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge. Yes, Virginia, there is EMC and it is no Black Magic. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no EMC and if it were Black Magic! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished. Not believe in EMC! You might as well not believe in ferrites, or absorbers. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the stores to catch EMC, but even if you did not see EMC coming down and interfering, what would that prove? Nobody sees EMC, but that is no sign that there is no EMC. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see EMC fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You tear apart the baby monitor and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, experience, love of the field, testing, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No EMC! Thank God! It exists and will forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, EMC will continue to make glad the heart of inquisitive engineers. Merry Christmas Dennis Ward Director of Engineering American TCB Certification Resource for the Wireless Industry www.atcb.com 703-847-4700 fax 703-847-6888 direct - 703-880-4841 From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of Price, Edward Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 7:49 AM To: EMC-PSTC Subject: RE: EMC Eduction and Training ________________________________ From: emc-p...@ieee.org [mailto:emc-p...@ieee.org] On Behalf Of Kunde, Brian Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 6:52 AM To: EMC-PSTC Subject: RE: EMC Eduction and Training Hey, lets think about this for a minute. Do we really want this “black magic” stuff we do for a living to be better taught in universities? Lets face it, we have a good thing going here and we don’t need some greenhorn engineer thinking he knows more about it than we do. As mentioned earlier, this job is more experience and technique than science. The best EMC engineers and technicians I know where not taught in school, but had been mentored by an older experienced EMC engineer. Like a magician passing on his secretes to his apprentice. This is how it has been done and the way it has to be done. The Other Brian The Other Brian touches on an interesting and salient feature of the happy EMC Engineer. EMC demands a more "hands on" approach than most of the other disciplines. Those students who are not already building their own circuits and frying their own power supplies will not do well in EMC, or at minimum, will try to stay toward the academic / computational edge of EMC. To the rigidly academic, it must be terrifying to discover that EMC problems have so many unknowns and (usually) more than one solution. I'm not so sure that a mentoring / apprentice system HAS to be the only way to assure continuity, but, from my observation, it has been an effective and efficient method. Certainly, we could get into an endless discussion of whether our educational system rationally assigns talent to appropriate needs (after all, they told me I could be anything I wanted; what they didn't tell me was that what I wanted also had to be needed). Remember Pachinko and Pinball machines? There's something fascinating about watching the life-arc of a ball, despite us knowing with 6-sigma certainty the origin and destination of every ball. Uhhh, what was the question? Ed Price ed.pr...@cubic.com <blocked::mailto:ed.pr...@cubic.com> WB6WSN NARTE Certified EMC Engineer Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab Cubic Defense Applications San Diego, CA USA 858-505-2780 Military & Avionics EMC Is Our Specialty - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@ptcnh.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com> - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to <emc-p...@ieee.org> All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc Graphics (in well-used formats), large files, etc. can be posted to that URL. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas <emcp...@ptcnh.net> Mike Cantwell <mcantw...@ieee.org> For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher <j.bac...@ieee.org> David Heald <dhe...@gmail.com>
