The Dark Ages and the Renaissance were, for me, abstractions from long-forgotten textbooks. Yet, here in the Church of St. Croce, tangible evidence of the Florentine rebirth of art and science is all around me. To my right is the tomb of Michelangelo, sculptor of David. Next to that is a memorial to Dante, author of The Divine Comedy. Further up on the right are the tombs of Machiavelli, author of The Prince and Rossini, composer of the William Tell overture. To my left is the tomb of Galileo, arguably the brightest light of them all.
Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642), an astronomer, physicist and mathematician, is the father of modern science. He expressed his natural observations mathematically, and found real-world applications for his discoveries. Galileo did a lot of Fresh Thinking in his lifetime, none more profound than his work on the Solar System.
Galileo advanced a notion of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus that the earth orbits around the sun. Based only on his observations of the heavens, Galileo promoted this concept of heliocentrism for twenty years, leading to his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in 1632. This contradicted the geocentrist doctrine of the Catholic Church. A Papal inquisition of 1633 forced Galileo to denounce his concept and placed him under house arrest for life. Banished to an obscure location in the back of the church in 1642, Galileo’s remains were relocated in 1737 to the present place of honor near the front entrance. Galileo paid a price for his Fresh Thinking, but in the end, we all benefited from his intellectual integrity.
Today, Fluke is doing some Fresh Thinking around the maintenance of rotating machinery. Conventional wisdom calls for long-term observation by specially-trained technicians with expensive vibration analysis instrumentation to troubleshoot rotating machinery. The Fluke 810 Vibration Tester is designed for maintenance techs that need to quickly ascertain mechanical equipment condition, to understand the root cause of any problem, and to take cost-effective corrective action right now. Using proprietary algorithms an Onboard Info feature and a powerful user interface, the new Fluke 810 helps you quickly identify root cause (e.g., bad bearing, misalignment, unbalance or looseness), to determine its location, and to determine how severe the problem is, all without reliance on prior machine history.
To see how the Fluke 810 can help you eliminate guesswork, maximize uptime, control maintenance costs, and minimize spares inventories, download the 810 Application Note: http://support.fluke.com/find-sales/Download/Asset/3672666_6126_ENG_A_W.PDF
Bio: Rick Pirret recently retired from Fluke following 30 years in product design and marketing. Previously, he was with Bell Labs for 10 years in product and facility design. Rick studied mechanical engineering at Cornell and Stanford, and completed an MBA at Seattle University. Over the years, hobbies have included scuba diving, white water canoeing, flying, motorcycling, and bicycling. More recently, Rick likes to be outdoors in the Cascades Mountains or on-track in a BMW.
