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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Guitar under construction

March 28, 2016 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Richard French

“Science, Engineering, and Guitars”

ABSTRACT -- The guitar evolved from other stringed instruments over hundreds of years and did it with essentially no understanding of how these instruments actually worked. Today, there is a body of knowledge, but it is more limited than one might think. Fundamental physical principles offer a solid starting point for guitar design, but questions of aesthetics are hard to quantify. People who make guitars live at the intersection of science, engineering, art and business. It's a very interesting place.

SPEAKER -- Richard French was born in Monterey CA and lived in a number of different places before fetching up in southeastern PA. There, he both discovered the joys of Bruce Springsteen music and graduated from high school before going to Va Tech for a degree in Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. His first job was as a civilian engineer working for the Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB. While there, he also did an M.S. and Ph.D., both in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Dayton. Tiring of secure employment, he went to the auto industry where he worked as a lab manager and a senior engineer for tier 1 suppliers. By 2004, he thought he knew enough about being an engineer to try teaching it. He joined the department of Mechanical Engineering Technology at Purdue and has been there since. He has made too many guitars to count, written two books on the subject and done work for several manufacturers. His playing can be described as 'almost adequate'.


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov