biomechanics is soooo cool.

I took my first graduate class today.  MAE CM240 - Introduction to Biomechanics.  Interesting first thoughts in my first of my nine-part series of supposedly mastering a subject:

1.  For the first time ever, I didn’t understand the English that my Indian professor spoke.  (it took me a good 2 minutes of hard concentration to decipher his accent, the patterns thereof as it related to English, and then to simultaneously translate what he was saying into what my mind could run with into statics and physics)

2.  There are SO MANY BOYS in my classes.  AND coincidentally, boys tend to smell when packed into a room and given a 5 minute break from their sit-very-still-and-speak-not-for-one-solid-hour-of-lecturing stance.

3.  Biomechanics is very intriguing.  Did you know… that if you’re caring a 20 lb box with it’s center of mass 12 inches from your L5S1 disc with your center of mass 6 inches from the same disc, all three aligned parallel with the ground, and your back bent 70 degrees from the ground… your back muscle will pull (given that it’s center of mass is 2 inches from your L5S1 disc) with a force of 420 lbs downward, your disc is experiencing 41 measly little lbs in the shearing direction (in a +40 degrees from the horizontal direction, as the disc is oriented this way) and a whopping 533 lbs along the disc’s axis?! (that’s in the 70 degrees (or 110 degrees from the horizontal))… 533 lbs!!!!! I was truly amazed.

4.  God really is the creator for none other can create such beautifully and perfectly mechanically designed creatures.  My professor kept on saying how beautifully the human body was designed.  You’d think he believes in intelligent design :).

… more thoughts on grad school to come later.  for now, i close with a simple PRAISE AND THANKS BE TO JESUS.  He’s so good, amen?