Alexander Larson

I am a junior Mechanical Engineering student at Colorado State University. I am very passionate about vehicle design and science, such as aircraft, cars, motorcycles, high-performance bicycles, and more. I have a deep passion for motorsports. I have interests in Computational Fluid dynamics although my knowledge is very limited. CFD is basically aerodynamics, and alot of multivariable calculus is used to determine fluid flow over surfaces by approximating surfaces and shapes as the sum of various functions in three dimensional space. Double and tripple integrals can be performed by computer algorithms to determine ideal aerodynamic shape to optimize downforce in race cars. A venturi style ground effect in high performance cars can also optimize downforce. Fluid Dynamics algorithms can be achieved through Stoke's Theorem and Greens Theorem as a basis among many more theorems. Beyond Kinematic equations in physics... Ordinary Differential Equations can be used to derive velocity and position equations for real world movement including non-linear air resistance. This is why the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport needs a whole 200 hp more than the standard Veyron to achieve only a few mph faster top speed... because at those relative speeds the air resistance has grown exponentially relative to increase in velocity so much more power needs to be added to the car. Thermodynamics and ideal gas laws are used in the design of internal combustion engines. The average ideal stoichiometric ratio of air to gasoline in the combustion chamber of a car is 14.1:1. A hemi engine is a semi-spherical head of the combustion chamber is shaped by advanced 3-dimensional calculus. Ordinary or Partial Differential Equations are used to shape camshafts and camshaft lobes. Timing belts are mathematically timed to relate the movement of the exhaust and intake valves with the crankshaft to move the pistons up and down. A cylinder or combustion chamber may have varying amounts of valves, both intake or exhaust. You can have 2 valves, one intake and one exhaust, or you can have 4, 2 exhaust and 2 intake for improved performance, and even 5 valves per cylinder. One may increase the amount of air in the combustion chamber with a turbocharger, but there is turbolag. A catalytic converter consists of a honeycomb structure which uses chemical reactions to greatly reduce harmful pollutants and makes a car much less harmful to the environment. Modern cars are filled with computer sensors for data aquisition of moving components and can quickly make adjustments many times every second to optimize performance. I am very proud to be a CSU engineering student. After researching the numerous research facilities and funding, it is apparent how serious this University is about engineering academics. In fact, CSU has the 2nd most research funding in the nation for Public Universities with no medical school, bellow Georgia Tech at 376,000,000 dollars for CSU, with a per-faculty funding of about 620,000 per faculty in engineering... with almost 1 million square feet of engineering research space, CSU offers alot. They even have their own linear particle accelerator to advance the study of particle physics and many off-campus state of the art research centers. It was not easy to work my way into the program from being undeclared, considering the average high school GPA is 3.79 and ACT is 27.2 for engineering. I had a bit of struggle in academic achievement from my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and school performance anxiety during sophomore year but I have become much more well managed this semester. OCD is a blessing too though, as it gives me high motivation and passion for science, math, and engineering. I want to know more about physics, even though it is difficult to understand. Because understanding physics means you can know everything about everything. Like String Theory and the Grand Unified Field Theory, proving string theory can allow humans to know everything there is to know in the known universe. There may even be other universes, varying dimensional universes which are like membranes in a 11th dimension multiverse. Quantum Mechanics deals with the quantum leap, in which electrons in atoms "leap" to different orbitals with no travel inbetween. This is a large basis for both modern chemistry and physics... in atomic models there are seperate and distinct orbitals... of which electrons are leaping into new atom orbitals. Quantum Tunneling is the strange phenomenon of electrons colliding into a barrier... in the microscopic world some essentially go through the barrier by borrowing time from the future and some dont. The double slit experiment is also very strange because particles in the microscopic world only go through one slit yet behave differently by going through two slits at once to form interference waves based on the act of observation. I think this is the basis of quantum mechanics. With Quantum entanglement, we have proven that teleportation is possible and has already been done with particles on earth. We are even starting to use quantum computers, which line up atoms in a magnetic field, and shoot electromagnetic radiation at them to flip charges so the binary code can oscilate between 0 and 1 and also inbetween.