W e a t h e r ...
T h e S t u d e n t N e w s p a p e r o f W o r c e s t e r P o ly t e c h n ic In s t it u t e
Today: Sunny and mild. High 65 to 70. i Wednesday: Fair. High 65 to 75. Thursday: Possible rain. High in the 60s
Tuesday; Septem ber 29, 1998
Volume Twenty-six , Number Eighteen
WPI blood drive would make Dracula jealous: C o lle c t e d
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by Janette A rthur Newspeak S ta ff This past Tuesday and Wednes day W PI h o sted a b lo o d drive sponsored by the Red Cross. O ver the tw o days here at WPI, the Red C ross collected 127 pints o f blood, exceeding the set goal o f 120 pints and nearly reaching
o f b lo o d
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last y e a r’s num ber o f 133. In fact, this blood d rive attrac ted m ore participants than past years, but like past years, a num ber w ere turned dow n because o f illness, recent tattoos, o r age. T here will be another blood drive in D ecem ber, how ever, and anyone ov er eighteen years o f age, w eighing 10 pounds or m m ore and in good
health can donate. The Red Cross is an org an iza tion that provides aid in the form o f d isa ste r services, health and safety services, international ser vices, aid to the arm ed forces, and biomedical services. The category o f biom edical services includes blood drives that are organized to co lle c t b lo o d n eeded a p ,p ro x i-
mately every two seconds for sur gery, accid cn t victim s, cancer p a tie n ts , and h e m o p h ilia c s . Through blood drives like the one this past week, the Red C ross a v erages 6,000,000 volunteer dona tions a year and helps over 3,000 h o sp ita ls. To c o n ta c t the Red Cross for blood drives earlier than December, call 508-756-5711.
The w om an, who fell 30 feet from her bedroom w indow into a ivy patch, su ffered tw o broken legs, a broken back and possible head traum a, according to a pub lic safety report. She w as trans ported to M iami Valley H ospital by the Dayton Fire D epartm ent
P aram edics, w here she arrived in serious/critical condition. As of W ednesday night, her condition had been upgraded to fair. A c c o rd in g to D r. W illia m Schucrm an, vice president o f stu d en t d ev elo p m en t and dean o f students, the girl was involved in
a loud party at her VW K suite. R esid ent assistants had w arned people in the su ite e a rlie r that evening they were being too loud and had rem inded them o f the al cohol policy. The R A s returned to the room
A & E ...
U. Dayton sophomore jumps from a window to avoid write-up by Brad Eaton The Flyer News (U -W IRE) DAYTON, O hio — A female sophom ore jum ped from her V irginia W. K ettering R esi dence Hall second-story w indow Saturday night.
See Jumper, continued to page 2
Yale physicists solve decade-old electron mystery by Sung II Moon Yale Daily News (U-WIRE) NEW HAVEN, Conn. Two Yale physicists have invented a special wiring network that con trols every electron movement at the heart o f a computer. Collabo rating with Swedish researchers at the Chalmers University o f Tech nology in Goteborg, Sweden, Yale a p p lie d p h y s ic is ts R o b ert Schoelkopf and Daniel Prober de signed a transistor that can sense
the movement o f a single electron moving across a wire in a manner 1,000 times faster than any com pa rable device. “We built an electrom eter using a single electron transis tor which for the first time has the speed and the sensitivity to mea sure the state o f solid state quan tum bit before it loses its coher e n c e ,” S c h o e lk o p f said . Schoelkopf’s discovery brings to an end a 10-year odyssey for a de vice that would solve one o f quan tum physics' great mysteries: how
electrons move from one place to another. “Certainly for the last decade this has been an important general is sue in physics,” Prober said. Because Schoelkopf’s device is fast enough to measure the m ove ment o f an electron across a wire, scientists can now examine the pat tern o f electron motion — whether electrons move in “single” file or in a random fashion. And the device that the Yale team built is rem ark ably simple. Schoelkopf modified an
WPI’s Army ROTC web site selected for link to Discovery Channel School Courtesy o f WPI News Service Lt. Col. Stephen H. T upper of the WPI Army ROTC unit on cam pus received notification from the D isc o v e ry C h a n n e l S c h o o l at h ttp :d is c o v e ry s c h o o l.c o m that th e W PI A rm y R O T C site at w w w .w pi.edu/A cadem ics/D epts/ M ilSci/BTSI.htm l was selected as a valued Internet resource for the th o u san d s o f teach ers th ro u g h o ut the U .S. w ho v isit this r e source. T heir D iscovery Channel
School site features hundreds of pages o f lesson ideas and activi ties for many o f the topics com monly taught in the K- 12 curricu lum. The cited W PI web pages were initially set up by an IQP team several years ago, says C olonel Tupper, and are part o f the m ili tary science curriculum. The pages are described as S taff R ides, in structional vehicles for convey ing historical lessons from past cam p aig n s to the le ad ersh ip of the Arm y in the present. T he aim
o f the sta ff ride is to bring to life past battles to provide exam ples o f leadership and examine the vari ous factors o f battle. The b attles d epicted at the W PI site are from th e R e v o l u t i o n a r y W ar a n d c o v e r the B attle o f L e x in g to n a n d C o n c o r d , th e B a ttle o f B re ed ’s H ill/B u n k e r H ill, B attle o f S a ra to g a , and the B attle o f M o n m o u th . The links feature im ages, d e scriptions o f the battles, lo g isti cal support in the area, and local sources o f inform ation.
National Fire Prevention Week by Dave Messier Environmental & Occupational Safety Manager National Fire Prevention Week is October 4-10. Since 1922, the Na tional Fire Protection Association has sponsored this week to pro mote fire safety awareness. This y e a r’s theme is “ Fire Drills: The Great Escape”. According to the NFPA, “most people realize that being prepared to exit a fire scene quickly is essential to escaping unhurt. And while nearly everyone has participated in fire drills at school or at work, the majority have never experienced a fire drill at home. That’s dangerous because most fa talities occur in home fires. This year’s theme is designed to raise fire safety aw areness and reduce fire deaths and injuries.” WPI will support National Fire Pre vention Week in two ways. First, the Brown Bag Lunch Safety Seminar Series will kick off its second year with a presentation by Prof. David Lucht entitled “Fire Physics - Surviv ing a Fire in Your Home”. Prof. Lucht is the D irector o f the C enter for
Firesafety Studies at WPI. This ses sion will be held on October 8 at 12:05 p.m. in Stratton Hall 308. The second
F ire
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Deaths and injuries: U ninten tional fires and b u rn s caused ab o u t 3 ,7 0 0 d e a th s in 1997, dow n 12% from 1996. About 3,300 o f these deaths (approxi m ately 89% ) occurred in homes. In the hom e, fires and burns are the third leading cause o f uninte n tio n a l-in ju ry d e a th fo r all ages. S m o k in g is the leading cause o f hom e fire deaths, with 23.1% from 1991 to 1995. Incen diary or suspicious fires are the second leadin gcause o f hom e fire deaths with 16.2%, followed by h eatin g (1 4 .0 % ), ch ild re n playing with fire ( 1 1.2% ), elec tr ic a l d is tr ib u tio n s y s te m (10.0% ), and cooking (8.1% ). C h ild ren p lay in g w ith fire: C hild-playing fires were by far the leading cause o f fatal fires in v o lv in g v ic tim s u n d e r six
T h e N a t i o n .. Bicycle Accidents Cause Alarm T\vo accidents in one day at BYV
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W om en’s Soccer (4-3)
The Women are on the w in ning side, so how are the rest o f the W PI sports team doing?
T r a v e l i n g . .. Road Dispatches
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The Gagne Brothers reach the Middle o f the Country.
H o m e c o m in g ..
activity will be a fire extinguisher training session on October 9 at 10:00 a.m. in GH 217. This session will con-
P re v e n tio n
ordinary single electron transm it ter by adding a radio wave emitter. Scientists can detect the flow of the individual electron by examining the bouncing radio wave o ff of the elec tron. The Yale transistor could be the basis o f a future gen eratio n o f supercom puters known as quan tum com puters which exploit the huge potential o f subatom ic par ticles. By building a com puter based on quantum technology, these future supercom puters will be at least th o u sa n d s o f tim es faster than today’s CRAY machines. Although Schoelkopf’s ingenious discovery will help answer a fundamental theo retical question, his discovery also has im m ediate tangible ap p lica tions. T h e National A eronautics and S pace A dm inistration is a l ready funding two research projects which use Schoelkopf’s transistor. Because his transistors are much more sensitive than ordinary ones, NASA would be able to use the Yale discovery to build better sensors for x-ray, visible light and m icro wave detectors used in scientific research. The government agency is also currently considering the funding for two additional research projects at Yale in sim ilar areas.
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elude outside and includes an oppor tunity to use an extinguisher on a small, controlled fire.
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years o f age, accounting for 39.2% o f th e ir 199 1 -1 9 9 5 hom e fire deaths, nearly three times the sec ond leading cause, heating fires. M aterial ignited between 1991 and 1995: Cooking materials were most often the m aterial first ig nited in hom e fires (83,100 fires; 18.6% o f total). O ther m aterials first ign ited include rubbish or trash (46,200; 10.3%), structural member or framing (34,100; 7.6%), m a ttre ss and b ed ding (2 8 ,9 0 0 ; 6.5% ), and interior wall covering (17,300; 3.9%). Area o f origin over the five year period 1991 to 1995: Over 30% of th e h o m e fire s b e g a n in th e kitchen. A nother 13% began in the bedroom , 9% in living room s, fam ily room s, or dens, and m ore than 8% in the chim neys. M onth fire deaths are g reater
than average in the months o f No vember through M arch. In the five year period 1991-1995, fire deaths w ere lowest in July (5.3%) and highest in January (14.3%). Cost: The NFPA’s estim ated total cost o f fires in all places in 1995 w as $57.1 billion. The eco nomic c o st was $11.3 billion, cost o f fire d e p a rtm e n ts w as $17.1 b illio n , net fire insurance costs to ta led $6.8 billion, and building construction costs for fire protection were $21.9 billion. F ire fig h te r death s in 1997: There w ere 94 firefighter fatali ties. T h is represents the fifth time in six years that few er than 100 firefighters died while on duty in the United States. Source: National Safety Coun cil (1998). Accident Facts 1998 Edition. Itasca, IL.
Spirit Week and Homecom ing are this week. Be ready for the fun sup plied to us th rough m any events see page 10 for d e tails
C on ten ts. N ew s .................................................. 2 Sports ................................................. 3 Road Dispatches ............................ 4 Arts & Entertainment.................. 6 West Street H ouse ......................... 8 International H o u se ................... 8 S G A ................................................... 8 letters to the E ditor ......................9 Editorial ...........................................9 Homecoming ................................10 Club Corner ................................. 12 Announcements ......................... 15 Classifieds .................................... 15 Comics ............................................15 Police L o g .................................... 16 What's Happening .................... 16