Kenneth R. Hardman

My father-in-law was a distinguished genius (in my opinion), curly hair like Einstein but dark, no mustache, full lips and a pleasant expression. As an electrical engineer and communications expert, he knew wavelengths, propagation theories, radar, amplifiers, oscillators, modulators, waveguides, and…well, you get the idea. No kidding! He could transform a farmers field into a multi-acre antenna, the ionosphere into a mega radio signal reflector, a helicopter into a low-flying top secret,… oops, he never spoke much about those things. Whether on vacation at Zion National Park or the LaBrea Tar Pits, he enjoyed, absorbed, assimilated, and took nature in, while pensive on a bench gazing through time and space.

What does this have to do with peanut butter you ask? I’m getting there. Ferril Losee died in 2012, but I can almost hear him speak, “the velocity of the electromagnetic wave is inversely proportional to the square root of the dielectric constant of the medium,” [1] or on another occasion, “We solved the problem with frequency-hopping spread-spectrum-modulation, and pseudo random code, plus matched-filter integration.” [2] (Don’t feel bad, I’m not sure what these are either. Whatever spectrum modulation is, he was an expert at spreading it.) As a professor, he lectured ‘ohms law’ like he was the German physicist Georg Simon Ohms himself, with depth of focus and application, remembering his pupils only when he turned around from the exhaustive chalk board every 15 minutes (I would know; I was there). As an engineer, he was spread thin taking sabbaticals regularly to leverage his expertise. And did I mention? He loved peanut butter. Okay, more about his career another time.

In his later years, he had multiple heart attacks and a stroke that disabled the left side of his body. For years he single-handedly (literally) wrote his memoirs, performed genealogical research, wrote a text book on spectrum-modulation (and other topics) [2], served his family, and continued to see through time and space. He continued as my mentor. “I can’t open my jar of peanut butter,” he exclaimed from the corner of his mouth with an overturned jar in his lap. “You’re a mechanical engineer; let’s design a mechanism for my wheel chair that will grip the bottle while I unscrew the lid?”

Such needs launched my mind into new and page-turning design activities; as usual. (I love it when this happens. No, not when people have strokes, or can’t eat their peanut butter, but you know the English proverb, “Necessity is the mother of invention?” I’m surprised he didn’t suggest a capacitive or inductive solution.)

I watched him try to open jars and spread peanut butter. I sketched some ideas, I walked up and down isles at the hardware store for inspiration, then I purchased some aluminum bars, springs, thick rubber coating dip, and a polypropylene bread board and went home to my garage. I drilled mounting holes and a smooth gripping-slot in the cutting board, made wheel chair mounting brackets, bent the aluminum into a round jar-gripper in my vise-clamp, dipped the hand lever in liquid rubber, then mounted everything to the board, and headed back for a test drive on the wheel chair. We tried it, changed it, collaborated on it, revised it, and… Such challenges accelerate and often consume my mental capacities. Just like my father-in-law, I love these creative mental gymnastics. In good taste (or full disclosure), I can’t say that this invention was a gripping success, (I probably should have meditated on a park bench in a national park before going to the hardware store); we eventually set it aside and went on to other things. But I can say that it was gratifying to collaborate with and serve a great scientist who loved engineering, who served humanity, and who persisted spreading his spectrum-modulation, and… his peanut butter. Such are the minds of engineers.

(The End)

(If you really must know what ‘frequency-hopping spread-spectrum-modulation’ is, just ask Ferril Losee [1], or look it up on the internet.)

(by Kenneth R Hardman. Originally posted in Engineer Stories by Ken Hardman, Oct. 31, 2014)

References:

[1] Losee, Ferril, RF Systems, Components, and Circuits Handbook, 1997 Artech House, Inc

[2] Morrill, Jenn, Ferril A. Losee, A Man of Honor, Edited by Jenn Morrill