The Parable of the Wind Turbine

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, is there a possible upside the a typhoon?”

Josh spoke thus:

An inventor and inventor’s assistant were testing a new wind turbine.

“We need to measure the wind speed,” the inventor said to the inventor’s assistant.

“We don’t have the equipment to measure the wind speed,” the inventor’s assistant said, “That equipment is in the wind tunnel.”

“We don’t have the wind tunnel anymore,” the inventor said, “The wind tunnel was destroyed.”

“Then the wind speed measuring equipment was destroyed along with the wind tunnel,” the inventor’s assistant said.

“What about the field equipment?” the inventor asked, “I know we had field equipment for measuring wind speed.”

“It wasn’t designed for measuring wind speeds of this magnitude,” the inventor’s assistant said, “And besides, it was destroyed along with the wind tunnel.”

“Do we have anything that wasn’t destroyed along with the wind tunnel?” the inventor asked.

“The wind turbine wasn’t destroyed along with the wind tunnel,” the inventor’s assistant said.

“Obviously the wind turbine wasn’t destroyed along with the wind tunnel,” the inventor said, “The wind turbine is right here.  The wind turbine is why we need to measure the wind speed.”

“We could reverse calculate the wind speed,” the inventor’s assistant said, “We could measure the wind turbine’s revolution speed, and knowing that, we could calculate the wind speed.”

“We could reverse calculate the wind speed that way,” the inventor said, “If the wind turbine were calibrated, but the wind turbine isn’t calibrated.”

“So how to we calibrate the wind turbine?” the inventor’s assistant asked.

“We measure the wind turbine’s revolution speed and use that to calculate the wind speed,” the inventor said, “Then we compare that with the actual measured wind speed.”

“Didn’t we do that in the wind tunnel?” the inventor’s assistant asked.

“We were about to do that in the wind tunnel when the wind tunnel was blown away by this typhoon,” the inventor said.

“Well we know one thing,” the inventor’s assistant said, “We know the wind turbine will withstand a typhoon.”

“Even if all the equipment around it won’t,” the inventor said.

“Next thing we invent,” the inventor’s assistant said, “Is a typhoon-force wind tunnel that can withstand a typhoon.”