Damons Laboratory
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A Science & Engineering OnLine Laboratory Notebook   
This is the laboratory notebook of Damon Bruccoleri.  Here you will find engrossing, thoughtful and fun commentary/opinion.  Leave a comment and let others know what you think about any post here, view my photo gallery, or sign my guestbook.

"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought." - Albert Einstein



Latest Notebook Entries

 Saturday, August 18, 2007


The Greatest Engineer of all time   

Pyramids_of_Giza.jpgI have been thinking about who I would vote for, if I were asked, to be the 'best' engineer of all time.  I have come to the conclusion it must be Al Bengali.  Al is the engineer who designed the Great Pyramids.  According to the Wikipedia the Great Pyramids were built (by Al) in 300 AD.  The first thing I looked up was to find out when Pythagoras lived.  He was around in 600 BC.  So Al did have at least one of the mathematical tools to design the pyramids.  The Pythagoras Theorem.  Remember that it relates the length of the sides of a triangle to the hypotenuse, or longer side.  He would have need all his trigonometry.  He probably would have needed Newtons laws of motion as well, maybe his law of reciprocal action - to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  But Newton wasn't around till 1687!  How the heck did Al design those things? 

The second achievement by Al is the size of the contract he landed.  Do you think there was a formal bidding process and proposal?  Think of the equivalent civil engineering project by todays standard.  It would probably be like proposing to the US government to build New York City and you would need to employ half of the US citizens to do it.

The third achievement by Al that astounds me is how long his pyramids have lasted.  How long do any of our engineering products last in todays world?  Maybe 3 years if your lucky?  OK, a good skyscraper will last a couple hundred years - if we don't kill ourselves or if a terrorist doesn't do it for us.  Those pyramids have lasted two thousand years!  I will tell you one thing, Al builds them to last and he probably didn't get much repeat business.  How many pyramids does a king really need if they last that long?



dbruccoleri at 7:31 AM | (3) Comments | Add a comment | Permalink



 Tuesday, June 26, 2007


Mike Story   
My brother, Michael Bruccoleri, has a quick wit.  I have told this story over and over but still not everyone has heard it.

nys_cheesecake.jpgYears ago, about 1990, Mike was a head waiter at a fancy NY steak house.  Dar Tiffany was in Greenvale NY. All the hi-brow's from the neighboring North Shore community ate there.  There was a foo-foo attitude in the air, if you know what I mean. This day two older couples sat at one of the tables. Mike served them dinner and it was time for dessert. It was customary for the waiter to explain to the diners the choices.  Mike went through the list and when he came to pecan torte, one of the ladies stopped him. She then explained to him that it was not pronounced pecān torte, it was pecăn torte. Mike, being the gentleman that he is, acknowledged that the lady was of course correct. He then went through the choices again, being careful to pronounce pecān as pecăn. Then he continued on to the next choice for dessert, cheese căke. With this the lady turned beet red, and the two men burst out laughing. I have no idea how they tipped Mike that night, but I submit that this story sure was worth it!


admin4 at 11:56 AM | (2) Comments | Add a comment | Permalink



 Wednesday, October 11, 2006


How to cut a sandwich   

The most important issue in cutting a sandwich is the resulting crust ratio of the bread. I have found a way to reduce the crust ratio on a sandwich without cutting off and disposal of the crust. Cutting off the crust would be wasteful. Now the assumption I made is that the bread slice is approximately a square. If the bread is not a square then the following argument and calculations still hold, it would just be more difficult to prove.

bisect sandwich.bmpYou see, if you cut the bread into four pieces by bisecting each side of the whole sandwich orthogonally then the resulting pieces each have four sides. Two of the sides have crust. Therefore each smaller sandwich piece is 50% crust.

But, if you cut the sandwich into four pieces by cutting the whole sandwich along the two diagonals then each resulting piece has only three sides. Only one of the sides has crust. But that diagonal sandwich.bmpcrust side is longer than each of the two remaining sides. Assuming that the length of the two shorter non-crust sides are 1 unit each, then Pythagoras Theorem tells us that the crust side is 1.414 units long. The total circumference would be 3.414 units long. Thus this smaller sandwich piece is 41% crust.

Therefore the sandwich cut along the diagonal has 9% less crusty sandwich pieces! That is an improvement. The conclusion is we must all cut along the diagonal and our society will enjoy less crust in our lives and hopefully more meat. Another tidbit for better living from www.damon4.com, the most exciting place on the internet!



admin4 at 6:34 AM | (5) Comments | Add a comment | Permalink



 Friday, July 21, 2006


In the News: Hippo Eats Dwarf   
hippo2.jpg

















All I can say is, "Yum".
(Now I will surely get more cooking related ads!)


admin4 at 10:48 AM | (0) Comments | Add a comment | Permalink