As part of the lead-up to our 2016 Centennial Celebration of MIT’s School of Chemical Engineering Practice—affectionately known as “The Practice School”—we interviewed alumni from across the decades and produced a series of short videos exploring a range of topics.

In this video, [link here], Carl Bozzuto, now with Electric Utility Consultants, shares his thoughts on the famed mass and energy balance—a foundational concept introduced early in every undergraduate engineering curriculum.

The mass and energy balance underpins nearly everything we do as engineers and scientists—whether in the lab, the pilot unit, or a full-scale operating facility. When the balance doesn’t close, we know something’s off: a calculation error, a leak, or perhaps a missing piece of the puzzle. We trust this principle so completely that when the energy balance didn’t hold in beta decay, it led Wolfgang Pauli, in 1930, to propose the existence of the neutrino. The neutrino was eventually discovered in 1956.

I’m now gathering stories from the field that highlight how you’ve applied—or relied on—the mass and energy balance in your own work. Do you have an example from the lab, a pilot plant, an operating facility, or even a modeling effort? Any situation at all. Please share it, in whatever length or style you like. Humor always welcome! I’ll be compiling these stories for a chapter in the book I’m currently writing.

Thank you in advance!

regards,

Bob