The Engineer's Pulse blog

Visual from The Engineer's Pulse

In my post of 29 April 2014, I wrote about the Space Elevator, getting information from the website of National Geographic magazine. But on the blog The Engineer's Pulse there is a separate section for this topic. The blog itself is worth mentioning because it has a lot of interesting topics and information for students in many different areas of engineering.

http://theengineerspulse.blogspot.co.at/

On the website, it is described as "Explorations of how science, particularly the areas of Physics and Engineering, affects our lives. Topics include engineering industries, science education, philosophical anecdotes, evolving technologies, and exciting projects like the Space Elevator - written with a personal touch."

The blog is written by Stephen Cohen, a Physics Professor at Vanier College (Montreal, Canada). His master's thesis (Mechanical Engineering) describes the dynamics of a space elevator, and he has published several scientific papers on the topic. So his input is extremely focused and complete.

Another separate section of the blog is For physics students, containing physics articles organized by course subjects.

On the blog he lists his heroes:

• Carl Sagan
• Arthur C. Clarke
• Isaac Asimov
• Annie Leonard
• Stephen Hawking
• David Suzuki
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Peter Hadfield

It would be interesting to have students find out more about these people, and determine why they can be considered "heroes." What heroes do students have? Who would they add to this list?

Students will certainly find something on this blog that they're interested in reading about, and perhaps report what they've learned to the class - either as a presentation, discussion or a written assignment.