The Idea Factory

by Pepper White

  I first heard of MIT growing up in the shadow of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Coming home from a business trip, my father brought me The Great MIT Paper Airplane Bookmy favorite was the one that looked like a little helicopter and twirled down to the ground when I let it go. When I was eleven, my mother (a pianist), my father, my three older sisters, and I moved to Washington, D.C. He'd taken a job as a science writer with the National Academy of Sciences.

  It was the first Earth Day (in 1971, I was thirteen) that sparked my interest in the environment. That interest lay dormant until I was trying to figure out where to apply for college and I saw that Johns Hopkins offered an Environmental Engineering degree. I started in that department, jumped over to physics, jumped back, and became interested in energy conservation as a way to help the environment. MIT's Technology and Policy Program (TPP) offered a generalist's approach to that type of issue; they accepted me and here I was.

  On a small patch of grass between concrete and asphalt in the adjoining cloister an ROTC squad did their morning jumping jacks.

  And halt!" the leader ordered.

  "Are we MOtivated?" he shouted.

  "Yes, sir!" they breathed loudly.

  "Are we Extreeeeeernly motivated?" he asked.

  "Yes, sir!" they breathed again.

  "Down for 20."

  I admired their intensity. I wondered whether I'd ever be able to match it.

  "This is Doctor White from MIT," I imagined my clients introducing me. "He's expensive, but he's good ... and he's fast."

  I asked the commander how to get to the TPP office, 1-138.

  "Turn left at that building up there-that's Building 13; then go back up to the infinite corridor and turn right into Building 6. Your second left from Building 7 lobby is Building 1; 1-138 should be about halfway to the Charles. At ease!" He spoke quickly, as if his tongue could not quite keep up with his brain. I imagined thousands like him within a quarter-mile.

  "What's the infinite corridor?" I asked.

  "It links all the main buildings, has glass doors on either end, and is about 319 paces long. On November 12 and January 31 the sun shines directly from one end of it to the other."

  I found the infinite corridor and even though school was not yet in session the pedestrian cruising speed was just short of a jog. All eyes were fixed forward. Some nodded to friends or acquaintances but none stopped to chat.

  There was a tug on the knot in my stomach. It was the same empty terror that had gripped me as a child waiting for the bus to take me to the first day of day camp.

  I had a few minutes to kill, so I wandered from side to side, admiring the displays of past MIT greats. Vannevar Bush, a father of computers. Norbert Wiener, high school graduate at eleven, another father of computers and of modem theory of controlling devices like airplane automatic pilots. Karl Taylor Compton, noted physicist from earlier in the century, who was also president of MIT. Intelligence sparkled through the eyes of all the old blackand-whites of the late great masters.

  The displays must be meant to inspire the present generation to work hard, to emulate their ancestors. But the first thing these walls seemed to tell me was "No matter how hard you work, you'll never be like these giants. Not only did they do nothing but work; they were gifted."

  Outside it was heavily humid, the trees in Killian Court lushly green. Sponges transpiring into the heavy air. I waited near the Technology and Policy Office, alone at 8:30.

  It was cool and dark inside. I looked through the corridor window across the Charles to the skyline of Back Bay.

  After a few minutes, a guy from Brown named Jim Stuart arrived. He was there to get the pick of the desks. An office desk is the MIT equivalent of a library carrel, a home away from home where you can securely keep your books. Like me, Jim was also there to get in line for funding. If you don't have funding at least you should have a desk. My first friend.

  "What was your major at Hopkins?" he asked.

  "Environmental engineering," I said. "You know, wastewater treatment, landfills, pollution control. How about you? What'd you major in?"

  "Environmental sciences. Sort of the same kind of issues, but maybe with a little more chemistry."

  He was articulate and had an Ivy League knowing look in his eyes. He'd picked TPP over Harvard's Kennedy School, another training ground for bureaucrats. As we talked, I began to wonder whether we had both been duped by the altruism of Professor Richard de Neufville, the "airport guy," whose computer programs for optimizing the flow of airplane traffic at airports had made his name big enough that he could start a program to train people to be bilingual: to speak the language of technology and to speak English.

  I wondered whether we'd been fooled into a program that looked good only on paper. But, according to the brochure, the graduates went on to impressive positions at think tanks and highpowered consulting firms, and they were "engineers with a difference."

  Karen Smith, the cheery voice from across the ocean, unlocked the office. Life in New England had flattened and compressed her southern accent but not her charm.

  "So I guess y'all need keys to the student office," she said. "It's over in Building 20; you go through Building 13, take a right, and go under Building 26. Here's a chart of the desks that are left."

  Of the twenty desks on the chart, only about 5 were unclaimed, and there were fifteen people entering the program. Jim and I had done well to be early.

  "Is Professor de Neufville in today?" Jim asked. "I wanted to talk to him about funding."

  "Yeah, I'd like to, too," I said.

  She answered, "He's on sabbatical for the year. But here's a list of projects. You can also talk to people at the Sloan School of Management or in your base engineering department."

  Each technology and policy student had to be affiliated with an engineering department. My affiliation was with mechanical engineering; I wanted to strengthen my fluid mechanics and environmental background. Also, I wanted to argue environmental and energy issues from a position of strength, with a degree from MIT.

  "Oh, I almost forgot," Karen said. "You'll have three tests before the term begins. The writing test is on Thursday; the test to qualify for the graduate economics course without taking an undergraduate course is next Tuesday; and you can take the swimming test whenever you want. No one can get a degree from MIT without knowing how to swim. And here're your course catalogs."

  Jim and I walked back to Building 20, the World War II temporary building opposite the swimming pool. Three stories, gray, military. The TPP student office was on the third floor.

  It had orange carpet, beige walls, and a brown couch. Pipes were exposed; lights were fluorescent. There were a hot plate and a refrigerator in the corner. This was home.

  The Indian-looking guy talking on the phone when we walked in finished his conversation and introduced himself.

  "My name's Amrit; what's yours?"

  Jim and I each told him and while Jim was scoping out the free desks, I continued to talk to Amrit.

  "What are you here to study?" Amrit asked.

  "Energy conservation. I want to work on energy systems to help combat the greenhouse effect."

  "Oh yes," he said. "I'm working on energy, too. I've just finished an energy model for my home country of Pakistan. I like energy. Energy is easy."

  Right, I thought. What's a model? I couldn't ask him because I didn't want to sound dumb. His way of speaking indicated that he was bright, but it disturbed me that he thought that energy was easy. I didn't come here to learn fluff; I came to learn rigor, to learn how to save energy through good engineering and economic analysis. Amrit was friendly, but I couldn't help thinking that if he wanted to work on easy things he would land a cushy job at the UN in Geneva or New York, doing nothing for his country and riding on the coattails of his MIT credential.

  Jim found a window seat, and I picked the one nearest the phone. It would soon be time to smile and dial for funding.

  But first a look t
hrough the course catalog. It was as thick as the Boston phone book. I thumbed through it and found the section that had appealed to me about TPP. "The Technology and Policy Program produces 'engineers with a difference.' Through study of a broad mix of engineering, economics, systems analysis, and regulatory policy, graduates will be able to function in the technological and policy environments." It had sounded great two years back, but it bothered me that there wasn't any funding for its projects. Real engineering departments could solicit funding from Fortune 500 companies or from various government agencies. But there was no Department of Generalities, so TPP had few doors to knock on. If there wasn't anyone to fund graduate research, who would fund my paycheck when I finished? Besides, the von Karman Institute had started me in a hard-core direction; TPP might be too soft. I asked Amrit for advice.

  "So is it true that TPP produces engineers with a difference?" I asked him.

  "Yes," he said. "The difference is that they can't get jobs." My doubts were intensifying. I continued to look through the catalog.

  As at Seven-Eleven, there is freedom of choice at MIT. The departments specify the number of courses you have to take, but which you take is between you, your adviser, and the department graduate adviser.

  Every MIT department has a number, as does every course. It helps you find your way through the catalog. Mechanical Engineering is "Course 2." The subdisciplines are signified by the next digit. Fluid mechanics is the 20 series, thermodynamics the 40 series, and heat transfer the 50 series. I noted potential courses.

  2.25 Advanced Fluid Mechanics (A. Shapiro, K. Gemayel). "Surveys principal concepts and methods of fluid dynamics. Statics. Continuity, momentum, and energy relations for continuous fluids. Vorticity dynamics. Circulation. Dynamical similarity in fluid flows. Boundary layer theory, including separation and other examples of shear flow phenomena. Introduction to turbulence. Drag. Lift." Potential metaphors for the coming months.

  2.451 General Thermodynamics I (Prerequisite: Permission of Instructor) (E. P. Gyftopoulos). "General foundations of thermodynamics valid for small and large systems, and equilibrium and nonequilibrium states. Definitions of state, property, work, energy, entropy, thermodynamic potential, and interactions other than work (nonwork, heat, mass transfer). Applications to properties of materials, bulk flow, energy conversion, chemical equilibrium, combustion, and industrial manufacturing." Sounds like this one should help my energy conservation skills, I thought. Maybe Gyftopoulos has funding, too. I put a star by it.

  2.55 Advanced Heat Transfer (W. Rohsenow). "Develops similarity between heat, momentum, and mass transfer in forced and buoyancy-driven flows. Covers fundamental modes of heat trans fer: diffusion, internal and external forced and natural convection, boiling, condensation, and radiative heat transfer. Flow instabilities and heat transfer augmentation techniques. Extends heat transfer results to analogous convective mass transfer processes." This could help in designing a heat exchanger to recycle waste heat from a chemical process, or in designing a solar collector. I put a star by it, too.

  Fluids had interested me since my canoe tripping days, when the waves and wind and rain in the middle of the lake seemed at once chaotic and orderly. I wanted to see, to feel the order. My first heat transfer experience was as a child with a hard-boiled egg. After it had boiled for twenty minutes, I poured water over it. It cooled down for a second, then heated up again. Why?

  "I'm gonna go get my athletic card and take the swimming test," Jim said. "Either of you guys want to come?"

  "Oh, yes," Amrit said. "I've got a squash game with my friend Dilip at 9:30. I'd be happy to walk over there with you."

  "I think I'll hang out here," I said. "I want to start contacting the people on the project list Karen gave us."

  Smile and dial. Tuition for the first term is $3,700. If it takes me six terms counting summers to get out of here, and tuition goes up at, say the inflation rate plus 3 points, how much will I owe if I don't find some sugar daddy to pay my way through? Oh, and don't forget living expenses at another $5,000 or so a year. And it's not like med school or B school or law school where I'll be making 60K + when I get out of here and can pay off any debts in a year or two. The $1,000 I borrowed at 15 percent from my parents and each of three friends is as much debt as I ever want to bear.

  Big smile. Feel the corners of that mouth extend across the face. Deep breath. Pick up the phone.

  "Hello, is Professor Mikic there?"

  "That's Mick-ish," the Slavic voice on the other end said. "What can I do for you?"

  "Uh, my name is, uh, Pepper White, and I'm in the, uh, Technology and Policy Program, and I saw that you, uh, have a research project in phase change materials. I was wondering whether I, uh, could come and talk to you about it." My knees were shaking.

  "You don't want to waste your time with me," he said. "I don't have any money."

  "Maybe I could talk to you about my classes. I think I need some guidance."

  "As you wish. How's eleven o'clock?"

  "That sounds fine. Thank you, sir."

  Call number two. "Professor Robert Pyndike, Economics Department (Sloan School). Thesis project: Computer modeling of global oil pricing. Determination of supply and demand curves, compilation of econometric data, and sensitivity analysis. Half-time research assistantship."

  It sounded good. Maybe I'll do that and go work for an OPEC sheik for $100K. OPEC's in Vienna. I like Vienna.

  "Hello, Professor Pyndike, I'd like to make an appointment to talk to you about your oil pricing research."

  "Talk to my secretary and make an appointment. I'll be out until next Tuesday."

  "OK. Thanks."

  "Professor Leon Glicksman. Experimental and theoretical study of outgassing of freon in foam refrigerator insulation. Development of computer models to predict experimental results, construction of test apparatus, and refinement of models."

  His answering machine said he'd be back next Tuesday. I didn't leave a message after the tone.

  Mikic's office was in Building 3. Across the hall I stopped to look at the display case with photos posted and things made out of oatmeal boxes, rubber bands, and string. Must have been some kind of contest.

  His office was professorly. Piles of journal articles on the table next to his desk. A blackboard opposite where he sat. A wall of full bookcases behind him. His window overlooked the humid trees of Killian Court. His young assistant, about my age in gym shorts and a T-shirt, was typing at a computer terminal near the blackboard.

  Mikic offered me one of the black MIT captain's chairs, the kind that alumni have in their dens, the one that didn't have a stack of journal articles on it. The piles were neat. I had the feeling that I could ask him about anything in heat transfer and he could go to the right pile and pull just the right article out of the middle of it.

  He was about fifty, trim, with most of his hair, wearing a white short-sleeve button-down shirt, no tie. The top button was unbuttoned. He had a friendly, intelligent smile.

  "So, what can I do for you, Mr...."

  "White. I did some work on phase change materials in Belgium, so I thought that experience might be useful for your project."

  "Well, I'm sorry, but I already have given that project to that fellow sitting over there." The guy at the terminal was looking smart, typing fast. I wanted to look smart and type fast in my mentor's office, too.

  Mikic asked, "What do you want to do when you get out of here?"

  "I want to be an energy expert."

  "Well, that's very good. That's a good topic now. Be careful, though. When you finish oil might be back down to $15 a barrel and everyone will forget about energy conservation. It doesn't really matter what you study here. We teach you to think. We make you into a professional. Then you can do whatever you want."

  "Could you help me pick out my classes for the term? I've starred some that look interesting to me, like fluids, thermo, and heat transfer. I was thinking about taking five or six this term including som
e TPP courses since I don't have funding yet. Then I'll be ahead of the game."

  "Start with five, then drop two," he said briskly. "And make sure you get A's in the real engineering classes. Most of us don't give much credit to A's in that soft policy stuff. We hire people who can make it in the hard courses."

  Mikic continued, "You know it's a courageous thing you're doing, coming here without any money. I did the same thing twenty-five years ago. I flew here and had money for one term and a plane ticket home to Yugoslavia. If I didn't make it in the first semester it would have been 'back home to Tito.' I worked harder than most in that first term, and I got A's in all my classes. Now I'm a tenured professor. Who knows? Maybe the same will happen to you."

  "I hope so," I said as I rose to leave.

  "Good luck now. If you ever need any help, please drop by."

  If Mikic was academe, Gyftopoulos was industry. I needed his permission to take General Thermodynamics I. His desk and chairs were teak; a single pad of paper was on the center and a small stack of correspondence to his left. While he was on the phone I glanced at the annual report from Thermo Electron that I had picked up from the reception area. Net revenues of $17 million on $270 million in sales. On the page where the directors were pictured, Gyftopoulos had a passport-size photo, looking wise and wealthy. In the mental marathon that is MIT, he was a gold medalist.

  Gyftopoulos was pushing sixty, a little overweight but he carried it well. He had salt-and-pepper gray hair and a receding hairline that had stopped well short of baldness. His shirt had no pockets, but on the left chest was a neatly monogrammed E.P.G. He smoked a cigarette he had taken from the silver cigarette case next to the pad.

  "I'd like to take your general thermodynamics class, sir," I said.

  "That's fine." His accent sounded like he'd learned English from a Brit in Athens. "What kind of background do you have in thermodynamics?"

  "Well, I took a course at Hopkins with Professor Schwarz, and I've also taken several fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer classes that touch on it."