Why don't you write about engineering, TAE?

Speaking of Thomas Jefferson, I always get a kick out of the wikipedia entry for polymaths.

My personal favorite polymant is Shen Kuo, who was basically Leonardo da Vinci except 400 years earlier and a lot smarter. Shen Kuo once wrote that the reason he excelled in so many things was that he looked for the synergies between different subjects. For example, while learning cartography he discovered some petrified bamboo far inland...and surmised the idea of climate change. He then concluded that the earth could generate new landforms through some as yet determined mechanism...and then invented the seismograph to track that mechanism - earthquakes.
He invented the compass, and the drydock.
He hypothesized that rainbows were caused by sunlight refracting through raindrops.
He wanted to track the movements of the moon and all known planets...so invented a new armillary sphere to do so.
He enjoyed poetry and politics.
He reported some of the first known accounts of UFOs.

So bear with me when I write about topics other than engineering. I'm just trying to be a polymath.


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