Here is your answer

[fbhjr]

Back in the 80’s the engineering school I went to had a different set of
graduation requirements from many schools.
You had to do three projects:
1 in humanities (mine was history.)
1 showing how technology impacts society (My group did a slide show on
forest fire fighting for a museum, leading to two of us working at the
museum.)
1 in your major field of study (I created a lab experiment that a professor
could use in a fluid dynamics class.)

Then, you had to take a “competency exam.”
A professor would give you a problem. You had 48 hours to solve it. Then,
you had to defend your solution in front of a board of three professors.

Since then they got rid of the exam as it was deemed “to stressful” for
people. And, it was quite stressful. I had to take it three times to
pass. (They said average was 2, but most people I knew did it in 1…)
When you were defending your solution, the three professors could ask you
any question they thought was important to proving you a competent
engineer, even if it didn’t have a direct relation to your question.
The good news was they only had an hour to do that.
The bad news was, you only had an hour to answer them.

The exam I finally passed started when the professor handed me a car jack.
“Is this safe to use to lift my car when I have to change a tire?” he
asked. “You have 48 hours to let me know.”

I had to take apart the jack, figure out how it worked, determine what
materials it was made from, analyze the stresses on all the parts and guess
at what kind of car he drove and how much it weighed.
In those 48 hours I got about 6 hours of sleep.
I determined the jack was not safe and had a good chance of dropping the
car on his head.

When doing my oral defense of my answer, one of the three professors asked
me a question I could not answer.
It was if I could graph for him the shape of the stress curve in the beam
that was supporting the car.
I was saved from failure on this when the lead professor on the team leaned
over to him and said “I couldn’t do that!”
So, I passed.

All that happened in early January 1986, almost exactly 29 years ago.

This morning as I was taking my shower, I realized what the shape of that
curve would be.
The stress in a simple bending beam is directly proportional to the
distance from the center of bending.
Yes, it was an odd shaped beam, which is what threw me off all those years
ago.
But, the rate that the stress changes is constant.

So, the answer was: a straight line on an angle. (What the angle should be
is a totally different question.)

My brain does this to me all of the time. Apparently it stores questions I
can’t answer somewhere in the back and works on them for a long time.
(Clearly up to 29 years…)
Then, at some point much later it pops out the answer.

That background processing is fine and all. But, I wish it were a bit more
predictable. And, that I could get things out of the processing queue if
no longer needed.
After all, I got my degree 28 years, 10 months, 26 days ago, shortly after
passing that exam.
It didn’t need to still be working on it all this time…

Comments

[anigo.livejournal.com]

This made me chuckle. My brain works similarly, though I'm not sure it would still be processing a question 29 years later.

My brain will, however, blurt out the answer when I get it, regardless of where I am. It's odd to be in a meeting and randomly shout "Whitney Houston" or something equally bizarre.

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

i've done this too.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I've done it with many other things. But, so far, 29 years is a record.
But, who knows what else is processing back there?

[chris-warrior.livejournal.com]

i think you delegated energy to your background processes well, and that's why it took so long to pop out the answer. :D you correctly identified that it was an extremely low-priority item, and your system has been running calculations at the speed of DOS ever since you graduated.

i agree, however, being able to clear the queue would be sublimely useful, on ALL matter of things.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

yeah my brain has done similar things. Although almost 30 years, well, I guess some people in the past have said they've reached
a state of enlightenment/eureka or whichever after many years of back-burner thinking… *shrug*

Still pretty fucking cool you managed to figure it out.

So, are you going to draw a diagram of the curve?
Maybe even submit it to the professor, if they're still there?

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I don't even remember the professor's name. He was not anyone I had for a class in my 4 years there. For all I know he was some guy off of the street...

[meathiel]

*lol*

Well, your brain obiviously does prioritise ... and this went to the end of the queue!

[hindustar.livejournal.com]

That is awesome, well maybe not so much for you but that is awesome. I have on rare occasions been able to answer some random question days later, but never 29 years later. =)

[tjoel2]

Wow. Now that's an intense exam! I can see why that would stick in your head. Although I've pretty much blocked out most of my exams from college. :}

[cosmicirony.livejournal.com]

I am glad that you have finally shown that they were justified in granting your engineering degree.

[merilune.livejournal.com]

I guess even though it wasn't necessary for you to pass, your brain held on to that question because some part of you always wanted to answer it. And now you have!

[brickhousewench.livejournal.com]

My brain conjures up answers in the shower all the time. I wonder if it's something about the water beating on your head that shakes things loose?