On the train trip back from Philadelphia I sat with Calvin,
an electrical engineer who I have seen on the train for more than a decade. We
had never spoken before except to say hello.
He took his computer out and hoped to work, but his hotspot
was intermittent, so unable to work he turned to me and said, “You’re some kind
of long-distance cyclist, right?” I said yes. “Didn’t you do an Ironman.” Again,
I said yes. He then said he rides inside on a Peloton stationary bike because
riding on the road is so dangerous. He immediately told me about a friend who
got hit by a car and had eight broken ribs, and about the complications three
months later and…
…I interrupted and said, “I have a friend who will soon
become a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. I told her that when she becomes a pilot
and meets new people who find out she is a helicopter pilot; they will start
talking about someone they knew or a friend of a friend who died or was maimed
in a helicopter crash.”
He understood and we changed topics to communications
technology. He said, “I am not for net neutrality. I want to pay for better
access to the internet. Not share overburdened networks with gamers and music
downloads.”
We started talking about 5G and how long it would take to
overwhelm even that much bandwidth. Then he remembered seeing that I was in the
Army not too long. He asked what I did. I told him tanks in the 70s and 80s and
helicopters recently.
It turns out that when I was in tanks, he was an engineer
working on guidance and targeting systems. The technology he was designing for
aircraft was transferred to the new (then) M1 Abrams tank that could shoot on
the move. I told him about tank gunnery without computers, what the process was
for engaging a target with no electronic assist.
He no longer works in defense but designs electronic systems
for advanced networks. From there, we
talked about chemistry and engineering. He said he had trouble with both
physics and organic chemistry in college, but now physics is a hobby for
him. When he said that, I guessed the
next turn the conversation would take.
After a pause in his otherwise rapid and sustained speaking,
Calvin said that God designed the universe with a beautiful and consistent
underlying mathematics. He said he was
led to this belief through the physics of electron flow in a wire and how
utterly consistent it is. He then began to tell me about how he discovered this
underlying mathematical principle.
ASIDE: When I worked at a museum of the history of science,
the people I met or corresponded with or heard who knew the secrets of the
creation of the universe were more likely to be engineers than any other
professional group. I also met a few doctors who were ardent creationists, but
mostly engineers. I remembered an engineer who helped to design the A-10
Thunderbolt II ground-attack aircraft who retired to write several books about
how the Earth is 6,000 years old.
At that point, I saw an open seat a few rows up. I excused
myself to go to the bathroom and changed seats when I came back. We shook hands
as we left the train in Lancaster.
