Viewing page 131 of 154

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[underline]] To Mother, September 24, 1925: [[/underline]] There is really no news except that I am head over heels in theory that is plenty deep enough to satisfy anyone. It is lots of fun trying to picture in one's mind just what is happening inside a machine when everything that does happen is invisible and intangible and moreover, there are a dozen things all contributing to the final result, all mixed up in different relations in space and phase and time. What a maze!

[[underline]] To Willie, September 25, 1925: [[/underline]] I am right in the middle of the design of my first motor, and so that you may know just [[underline]] exactly [[/underline]] what it is, it's a double squirrel-cage, twenty-two pole, 125 kilovolt-ampere, 50 [[degrees]] C, 275 revolutions per minute, engine-type, 3000 volt, 3-phase, 50 cycle, 125 horsepower, 80% power factor motor. It really is fun to be actually designing a machine, figuring out just how it is to be built so it will perform in accordance with the above specifications. I took mechanical engineering in college and here I am now doing an electrical engineer's work. That happens very often too. It doesn't make a great deal of difference which course, ME or EE, you do take in school because what you learn after you get out is so much greater to proportion than what you learn in school. And one of the greatest things one learns when one leaves school is how little one really knows. The more we learn, the more we find out what we don't know about.

[[underline]] To Mother, October 1, 1925: [[/underline]] I do wish you might have been out with us last night for it was perfectly glorious. Even in the woods, it was light, for the moon made it almost like day. The air was sharp and bracing and there was just the faintest mist. It was a wonderful night. At one place, we stopped to take in the scene. The moon was like a big white globe in the sky, the road stretched away, a pale-blue ribbon, winding through the meadows, and right beside us was a harvest field full of stacked-up corn. It was a typical harvest scene. We reached the Schencks in just an hour and it is three miles from Miss Comstock's house. We went in for an hour and a half, had a nice visit and also drank some very nice cocoa and had some very excellent fried cakes. There was a friend of Lewis's there, a young George Clemm, who has been in Japan for two years, his father being in the Construction Dept. of the International GE Company. He told us a lot about Japan and particularly about the recent earthquake -- I mean the big one a couple of years ago. He was in Kobe at the time, so missed it, but nevertheless, was in Yokohama later and saw all the damage. He said it was terrible, almost unbelievable. Mrs. Schenck was awfully nice and hospitable. I feel that there I can drop in anytime and be at home. I certainly am glad to be able to number them among my friends. Lewis is going with us tonight to see "The Student Prince." Am glad I saved you from seeing "The Ten Commandments." Am sure you wouldn't have cared for it.