appologies

[Jeremy R King <kingjer@eng.auburn.edu>]

Whoops.  Looks like I'm out a million bucks.  How much is that a month, eric?

In all seriousness, I owe you a public appology.  There's a point where 
joking and jabs get a little too serious and I crossed the line.  

The only problem I still have is that you kept saying, "do the math" and 
now that I've done it, all you have to say is, "do the empirical tests".  
I agree that I have a lot to learn still as an engineering student 
(that's why I always put the "student" part in there).  Our fomula car 
project is teaching me tons on how the real world differs from the 
textbook - especially when it comes to fabrication of an idea.  But it is 
also confirming that engineering calculations are very good predictors of 
empirical results, assuming that the model is accurate.  Until you do the 
math to back up your empirical "results", your argument doesn't have any 
more validity than mine.  Empirical differences can be attributed to so 
many variables that until you do "the math" you won't know what caused 
the differences.  You say that the carbon rotors improved your time to 
100 mph from 8 seconds to 7.  How many identical runs did y'all do to 
come up with these difinitive empirical results?  If both sets of data 
(carbon vs iron) were normalized, were they normalized for standard 
temperature and pressure, to each other, what?  Did y'all record the 
data, use average values, and compute the effects of different 
atmospheric conditions, tire wear, etc?  What about driver 
inconsistencies?  

Now about the flywheel arguement.  The proverbial apples to oranges 
arguement here, eric.  The flywheel and clutch ONLY HAVE TO OVERCOME 
ROTATIONAL INERTIA.  There is no linear momentum in this equation to 
compare rotational inertia to.  So yes, when the flywheel weight is the 
major part of the equation, differences in weight will make big 
differences in "wrap up" time.  But our whole premise (me and Glen) is 
that the aluminum rotors are a miniscule part of the braking equation.  
Sure the difference is there.  I'm not denying that.  

I will believe your arguement as soon as you prove your empirical results 
on paper.  I can do 0-60 runs all day and empirically show that putting 
my change in the other pocket will make me a tenth faster.  You need more 
than that.  SHOW ME THE MATH, ERIC.

Jeremy
'86 VW Quantum GL5
Auburn University, Alabama, USA
Hometown - Reidville, South Carolina, USA