Interview - Juan Martinez Val-Piera (Mine Engineer)

        Hi there again dear readers of Math in Space blog, it is an honor to have with us Mine Engineer Juan Martínez. He studied Mine engineering at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and he is now working at the F2I2 (Fundación para el Fomento de la Innovación Industrial - Foundation for the Promotion of Industrial Innovation) .

       - Question: First of all, thank you for being here answering our questions. Why did you decide to become an engineer?

        - Answer: I think it's mostly due to both my parents being engineers, although as a kid I wanted to be an astronaut or a surgeon, but when the time came to decide what I was going to do professionally, I knew I had a lot of questions about how things really worked so I decided to become an engineer, which I don't regret at all.

        - Q: What is your field of expertise?

        - A: I've been working in this company for several years in different areas, but for the past year I have been involved in Thermal Engineering, where basically we study ways of improving thermal exchanges that occur in our every day life.

        - Q: Can you briefly explain what does your job consist on?

      - A: My main job is to certify the isothermation of trucks for perishable goods transportation, from food to medicine, in order to comply with European Standards (ATP). We also provide technical assistance for other companies that request it to us.

       - Q: What role has calculus played in your professional career?

       - A: Besides giving me headaches, calculus is used for everything, absolutely everything. From a simple addition in an exam to complex calculations to determine the volume of a mass of petrol 2000 metres below the ground, or to be able to make a topographic map of my school. If you think it through, there is nothing calculus can't resolve, and, as Galileo said: "Math is the language in which God wrote the Universe".

       - Q: What experience from university has been more useful for your career?

       - A: Strictly related to my career, I guess the most important thing I learned is that every problem has a solution, complicated as it may seem. Personally, I believe that learning how to use the several computer calculus tools, from Excel to EES (Engineering Equation Solver).

         - Q: What project are you currently involved in?

    - A: Besides my every day work with mentioned transport trucks, I am involved in the development of an Air - Air Rotative Hear Exchanger, whose goal is to ventilate houses in areas of the planet where temperatures are extreme, very hot or very cold, and you can't ventilate by opening windows or doors like we do here in Spain, for example.

       Well, that's all for today, we would like to thank Mr. Juan Martínez for granting us these minutes, it has been really interesting to hear from his experience.