This week we're learning about soils. He gave us three problems today: 1. Given data on what percentage of a soil passed through various sieves with arbitrary names, plot the data on a semilog sheet with the log axis labeled in millimeters. The sizes of the sieves in millimeters are given. 2. Given the wet and dry weight of a soil sample in pounds, its volume in cubic feet, and the specific gravity of solids, compute various numbers. 3. Make a compaction graph. The masses are in grams, the mold is 1/30 cubic foot, and some other data are in "pcf".
Yesterday or the day before, when he was teaching this material, I was still working on the previous homework and couldn't listen to him. So today I asked him the meanings of terms such as "porosity" and "void fraction" (which are two ways of saying the same thing, like "chance" and "odds"), then converted everything in problem 2 to metric and started calculating. I asked the other students if I was doing it right (the prof left a bit early and we stayed late). They were more lost than I was, trying to make sense of a formula with the density of water in pounds per cubic foot in it - a number every kid learns in grams per milliliter in the kitchen. This prof is the head of the civil engineering and surveying departments. I already asked him to teach in metric and told him that National Metric Week is next week. I can't go above him to the head of the department; he is the head. Whom can I write to about this? Pierre
