Letters

To submit letters to Inventing Tomorrow, type “Letters” in the subject line of your message and e-mail to itmag@umn.edu or write to Inventing Tomorrow, 105 Walter Library, 117 Pleasant St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Include your name and daytime phone number. Please limit letters to 275 words.

Dear Inventing Tomorrow,

In the last issue of Inventing Tomorrow, you featured a photo of a grad student at the University of Minnesota involved in an interactive workshop for middle school students on alternative energy, and it reminded me of my own experience back in the 1950s.

In 1956, I entered graduate school in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. I worked on a solar energy project under the direction of Professor James L. Threlkeld and Professor Richard. C. Jordan, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The solar energy project was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Back then, I was doing solar energy research trying to determine the solar constant (energy available above the earth’s air mass) and energy loss from varying air mass conditions.
Measurements above the earth’s air mass were not available as they are now. Also, not too long after my research project, interest in solar energy waned because of other cheap energy sources like oil. My, how times have changed since then! I changed objectives and retired as a senior vice president of Control Data /Ceridian.

One interesting part of my research at the University involved overseeing the solar collection panels located on the roof of the Aeronautical Engineering building (now known as Akerman Hall). For two years, I spent at least part of every day that was not cloud-covered running the collectors on the roof.

During the summer months of 1956, 1957 and 1958, mechanical engineering Professor James “Crash” Ryan conducted many of his now-famous automobile crash tests in parking lots around the Aeronautical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering buildings. These tests led to his invention of the retractable seat belt and improvements in the shock-absorbing bumper.

I was able to observe most of these tests from the roof of the two nearby buildings. Some of Professor Ryan’s tests involved driving the car. One experiment that tested a shock-absorbing
hydraulic bumper involved hoisting a car and dropping it on the Ryan-designed hydraulic
bumper at 40 mph.

Because of my roof-top experiments, I was in a good position to take pictures and wanted to share two of them. I thought alumni and other readers of Inventing Tomorrow would enjoy seeing these unique photos.

In the picture of the car suspended on the tall crane, Professor Ryan is the man in the white shirt, hand in his pockets, standing near the fence.

I was a student of Professor Ryan and was also active with him in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) before and after graduation from the University. He was a wonderful individual who died much too soon after retirement.

Thank you for your publication. I very much enjoy reading Inventing Tomorrow and the ITems e-newsletter even though I’ve been gone for 50 years.

Harrison Benjamin
(ME ’56, Grad School ’56-58)