3 or 4 weeks later I receive about 5 inches of green&white - output section says the center deflection is 3 INCHES!!!

I go to wonderboy and say "You think there might be something wrong here?

Wonderboy says (indignantly) "Can't be, that's what the model says."

Wonderboy's boss (who refused to talk to him) was a Mercury/Gemini era structural guy. He and his buddy had (more than 1) editions of Rourke that they had hand corrected over the years, doing the derivations independently and comparing them to Rourke and marking up the text. For fun.

There were some guys working in the old days.

As you might recall I've worked for the government all my life. Since I started I went from cutting-edge science working for DARPA & NSA to where I've been for a very long time now - associate wrangler at a tard farm.

Talking with a newly-minted PhD from Sandia, discussing our mutual client before a meeting about 18 months ago:

PhD: Is Mr X an engineer?
Idiot me: Well, he's supposed to be. Why?
PhD: I don't think he has a good grasp of the fundamentals. He asked me how many times we'd have to recirculate the "cooled medium" through the heat exchangers before its temperature got below the temperature of the "cooling medium".

I've told 10 people that story at work and they look at me like I have three heads. But fortunately I had 3 other witnesses to the conversation, so I can bring them into the fray when needed.

Charlie