THE SWITCH

     In his introductory engineering class, C T felt a
growing sense of disease at the thought of doing what
appeared to be a more and more mundane set of tasks when he
graduated from the University.  It began that he wasn't
really interested in engineering at all in high school.  It
was mathematics, originally, but he might have just had a
crush on his teacher.  Such afflictions in a 15-year old can
impel him towards something as irrational as a sincere belief
in a good job market for a mathematics degree.  Physics, in
his junior year, changed his mind.  It was nothing as
advanced as his current general physics elective; it included
no calculus.  Still, he changed his mind in favor of physics
as soon as he understood the ubiquitous truth of orbital
motion, that all orbits are perfect ellipses with the bigger
mass at one focus.  Physics it was, then, as he began to tour
the various institutes and universities about the country.

     C T sat with his head propped up on his arm while Dr.
Strong of the mechanical engineering department gave his
lecture in introduction to engineering, Engineering 101.  C T
understood half of it and the rest he was sure he'd pick up.
The material bore the consistent engineering structure he'd
started to know.  Still, the mystique was not quite there the
way it had been, when he was a high school senior and
something made him believe electrical engineering was the
route for him.  Perhaps the time for another of these jump
transitions was upon him, as he heard the story of free body
diagrams.  F = ma.  There were three ways of understanding
this truth; three fields of knowledge he'd considered; three
languages.

     In math, there would be either complicated integral or
summation forms, as he was learning in his second calculus
course, math 140.  The length, area, or volume element, with
its sharper-than-razor-sharp singular edges subtended a
precise and provable region that, when combined with the
properties of density and charge density, would create the
interactions Dr. Strong was presenting with a maze of arrows.
Nothing would be assumed.  A more philosophical reasoning and
system of judgment might be allowed in derivations of higher
order, but there were certain truths and theorems,
established by the Classical Greeks, Renaissance man, and
even some technologists like Stoke and Fourier in the 19th
century.

     In physics, the mathematics would be underfoot, but
quantization and other relationships studied more.
Particles, C T remembered, made up so much of that junior-
level physics course in high school.  He remembered doing
Einstein's famous experiment, the one Einstein never really
did because he was too theoretical, concerning the
photoelectric effect.  An isolated Einstein could hardly have
won that Nobel prize.  The math wasn't too difficult.  Energy
is proportional to frequency.  Instead of methods of
integration, the very concept of Planck's constant came in,
that hypothesis-proven-fact that a wave isn't always a wave.

     And then there was engineering.  Engineering worked with
the results of both where it was convenient.  C T had looked
at his handbook to see what courses an electrical engineer
took in the junior and senior University years.  In the group
requirements were matrix methods, statistical thermodynamics,
and photoelectronic devices.  Here were drillings in three
established technologies, where the needed understanding of
the scientific and mathematical backgrounds related to their
special coverage would be extensive, yet no room for
theorizing would be present except for one minuscule freedom
to think an infinitesimal beyond the job assigned.  The
infinitesimal was certainly not the mathematically defined
dx, yet it was not a predictable and quantized response in
every engineering hopeful either.  The incremental edge was
what American ingenuity and inventiveness depended on, but it
could never be inspired measurably.  Engineers in the country
invented only by a single uncertain degree of freedom, that
one provided by the extent to which their program specialized
in "esoteric" theory.  C T began to feel he had much more
than that single degree.

     He stopped by the Arts and Sciences Building on the way
back home to Lodge Hall after class that windy Wednesday.  He
wondered what he was doing.  He shouldn't change his mind
about his curriculum, but was he really doing that?  He was
merely interested in seeing what went on in that massive
structure of offices and scattered classrooms, a domain he
had opted out of, at least tentatively, when he was choosing
a College in the University.  It was mid-November, and a few
leaves scudded across the aging concrete paths.  A guest
lecturer had talked about concrete to the introduction to
engineering class in September, to give the new students a
chance to experience some of the varying forms of the "art."
He was half surprised to learn that concrete doesn't become
completely hard until several months to a year after it is
"placed." "Concrete is never 'poured.' It is 'placed.'"  A
later hour exam question stumped half the class when it asked
about the concrete hardening mechanism.  C T passed an
inscription of the contractors who'd "placed" the walkway.
"Kelsey Bros 1954." The concrete was certainly hard by now!

     He found his way up past the aluminum-bannistered
stairways of the building, built at the time the walkway was
"placed."  A glass-windowed office on the third floor was
half plastered with artistic and inspirational posters.  One
showed a view of the Solar System.  Pluto plotted its orbital
locus inside of Neptune's, so that when it was in a certain
phase, it changed places with that planet for eighth and
ninth place in distance from the sun.  Inside, a young
student clerical worker typed energetically at her assigned
secretarial task, and another apparently undergraduate-level
student with an existentialist's beard studied a brochure as
if he might derive some satisfaction from it.  C T ambled to
the same rack and picked up two brochures like it, the public
relations material for physics and mathematics.  The physics
curriculum turned out to feature more of the material he
liked.  This was the original, free liking that might have
been fueled by any arbitrary combination of factors when he
was in high school, but which now seemed to place him in a
quandary of welcome and euphoric indecision.

      C T approached the secretary/clerk at her desk.  "Could
I see a counselor in the physics program," he asked, afraid
of some sort of hidden wrath.  He'd shunned the department
like the Jabberwock until now, a requirement of supporting
his engineering goals.

     "Mr. Martin is the one you want to see.  Are you
thinking of changing majors?"  That question demanded an
immediate answer.

     C T answered, "Maybe.  Could he see me today?  I want to
get some advice right away."

     Just then, a door on the central area opened.  A man
with partial greying on the temples and a pair of tinted wire
frame bifocal glasses came out.  The secretary looked in the
direction of the door's sound.  "Mr. Martin.  This student is
interested in maybe changing his major to physics.  Do you
have a spare moment?"  Mr. Martin's mellow form looked as
though he had one.

     "Yes, come right in, Mr.  "

     "Prime.  C T Prime."

     "C T?"

     "Yes."  C T was ashamed of his unusual name.  "My
parents just called me C T.  Two letters.  It's like the 'S'
in Harry 'S' Truman."

     "Well we'll talk a little and see if we can't decide
what's best for you."  They adjourned to the office.  "What's
your current enrollment, C T?"

     "Engineering.  I'm thinking electrical."

     "The fields have a lot in common.  Fields, really."
This was the kind of humor C T had expected.  It was a good
sign.  "The procedure is rather simple if you're a freshman.
What class level are you?"

     "Just freshman."

     "No one is just a freshman at a school like this.  Your
Scholastic Intelligence Test scores must have been good..."

     "760 Math, 660 Language."

     "That's enough for any program.  Tell me, do you really
like the thought of being a physicist."  Mr. Martin pushed
his wire frames up on his nose with a gentle swipe.

     "I have a gut feeling.  I'd like to discover some
things."  C T settled back into the plush chair placed there
for interviewees.

     "Why don't you think about your motives for a week and
see me then.  It sounds like you are motivated, not like a
lot of money-hungry students I have come into this office
asking about salaries."  C T agreed with this advice; he felt
well advised.  But he was also sold.  Physics must be sold to
a potential student, just like any other product, and C T
knew he would have to pay for it.  He felt a different burden
on his mind when he hiked back to Lodge Hall.  The wind was
building, and the clouds were threatening snow.