Suspicious powderOn September 11, TU Delft’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering was closed for an hour after a mysterious letter containing two sacks of powder was discovered in the mailroom.
Employees of the faculty’s mailroom discovered an unclearly addressed letter among other letters. After opening the letter, they discovered two packets of powder. “And this happened on September 11,” said facility manager Loes Geurts. “I didn’t panic, but I was indeed very concerned.” The head of TU Delft security called the police. “The police were irritated because we didn’t immediately lock down the building,” Geurts said. “We then did this: nobody was allowed to enter or leave the building.” Police specialists examined the powder and concluded it was an ‘unharmful’ chemical material. A student had sent the letter. The student was ‘seriously’ interviewed by the police and Geurts, who concluded it was an innocent mistake. “I was surprised,” says Geurts. “I said: ‘You study at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering because you’re smart, so how could you do something so stupid?’”
Bike works
For nearly 150 years, scientists have been puzzled by the bicycle. How is it possible that a moving bicycle can, all by itself, be so stable? Researchers at TU Delft, working with colleagues from Cornell University (USA) and the University of Nottingham (UK), believe they have now found the ultimate model of the bicycle. The researchers discuss their findings in the latest edition of Delft Outlook, the science magazine of TU Delft. ‘Bicycle manufacturers have never been able to say precisely how a bicycle works’, explains Dr Arend Schwab of the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE). ‘They have always had to refine their designs purely through experimentation. In our model, they can enter into the computer all of the various factors that influence the stability and handling of their bicycle. The model then calculates how the bicycle will react at specific speeds.’ The model has recently been published in the science magazine ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A’.
Lying pays
It pays to lie, according to TU Delft Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, and that’s how one can characterize the planning of some mega projects. In his inaugural speech on Wednesday September 26th, Flyvbjerg explained why the costs of large-scale projects, such as High Speed Rail projects, new motorways, and the Channel Tunnel, systematically turn out to be higher than was forecast. Flyvbjerg is an international researcher focusing on cost overruns in mega projects, such as the TGV and ‘Big Dig’ in Boston. He has found similar patterns in more than twenty countries: the costs of these projects often turn out to be higher than planned, on average more than 30 percent higher. In the Netherlands, HSL-South project is a prime example: it has a cost overrun of 45 percent. In the coming years, Flyvbjerg, a part-time professor at the TU’s Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, will research mega projects in the Netherlands: “To my surprise, there is little systematic knowledge about this subject.”
Sustainable Transport
Can transport make a contribution to a more sustainable society? Many sectors in society are making important strides towards a more sustainable society, while traffic & transport, a sector responsible for a significant portion of man’s impact on the environment, seems disinclined to follow suit. The question is how the understanding that transport sector must make its own contribution to sustainable methods of transport can be translated into concrete actions. What would a sustainable transport system (for people and for goods) really look like, how could it be achieved, what parties must take the lead and how can government facilitate the process? These are the central themes of the study day being organized by TU Delft’s OTB Research Institute, in collaboration with Erasmus University and Transumo. The sustainable transport study day will be held on October 3 in Aula’s Senaatszaal.
Good English
Approximately eighty percent of instructors at TU Delft speak English well enough to teach Master’s students. The remaining twenty percent must follow mandatory courses to improve their English. These were the finding of a series of English proficiency tests that nearly one thousand TU Delft instructors took. Twenty-three percent of the instructors were found to be ‘near-native’ speakers, while approximately sixty percent were found to be proficient enough in English to teach Master’s students.
Suspicious powder
On September 11, TU Delft’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering was closed for an hour after a mysterious letter containing two sacks of powder was discovered in the mailroom. Employees of the faculty’s mailroom discovered an unclearly addressed letter among other letters. After opening the letter, they discovered two packets of powder. “And this happened on September 11,” said facility manager Loes Geurts. “I didn’t panic, but I was indeed very concerned.” The head of TU Delft security called the police. “The police were irritated because we didn’t immediately lock down the building,” Geurts said. “We then did this: nobody was allowed to enter or leave the building.” Police specialists examined the powder and concluded it was an ‘unharmful’ chemical material. A student had sent the letter. The student was ‘seriously’ interviewed by the police and Geurts, who concluded it was an innocent mistake. “I was surprised,” says Geurts. “I said: ‘You study at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering because you’re smart, so how could you do something so stupid?’”
Bike works
For nearly 150 years, scientists have been puzzled by the bicycle. How is it possible that a moving bicycle can, all by itself, be so stable? Researchers at TU Delft, working with colleagues from Cornell University (USA) and the University of Nottingham (UK), believe they have now found the ultimate model of the bicycle. The researchers discuss their findings in the latest edition of Delft Outlook, the science magazine of TU Delft. ‘Bicycle manufacturers have never been able to say precisely how a bicycle works’, explains Dr Arend Schwab of the Faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (3mE). ‘They have always had to refine their designs purely through experimentation. In our model, they can enter into the computer all of the various factors that influence the stability and handling of their bicycle. The model then calculates how the bicycle will react at specific speeds.’ The model has recently been published in the science magazine ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A’.
Lying pays
It pays to lie, according to TU Delft Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, and that’s how one can characterize the planning of some mega projects. In his inaugural speech on Wednesday September 26th, Flyvbjerg explained why the costs of large-scale projects, such as High Speed Rail projects, new motorways, and the Channel Tunnel, systematically turn out to be higher than was forecast. Flyvbjerg is an international researcher focusing on cost overruns in mega projects, such as the TGV and ‘Big Dig’ in Boston. He has found similar patterns in more than twenty countries: the costs of these projects often turn out to be higher than planned, on average more than 30 percent higher. In the Netherlands, HSL-South project is a prime example: it has a cost overrun of 45 percent. In the coming years, Flyvbjerg, a part-time professor at the TU’s Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, will research mega projects in the Netherlands: “To my surprise, there is little systematic knowledge about this subject.”
Sustainable Transport
Can transport make a contribution to a more sustainable society? Many sectors in society are making important strides towards a more sustainable society, while traffic & transport, a sector responsible for a significant portion of man’s impact on the environment, seems disinclined to follow suit. The question is how the understanding that transport sector must make its own contribution to sustainable methods of transport can be translated into concrete actions. What would a sustainable transport system (for people and for goods) really look like, how could it be achieved, what parties must take the lead and how can government facilitate the process? These are the central themes of the study day being organized by TU Delft’s OTB Research Institute, in collaboration with Erasmus University and Transumo. The sustainable transport study day will be held on October 3 in Aula’s Senaatszaal.
Good English
Approximately eighty percent of instructors at TU Delft speak English well enough to teach Master’s students. The remaining twenty percent must follow mandatory courses to improve their English. These were the finding of a series of English proficiency tests that nearly one thousand TU Delft instructors took. Twenty-three percent of the instructors were found to be ‘near-native’ speakers, while approximately sixty percent were found to be proficient enough in English to teach Master’s students.
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