My name is Wade Lanning. I am a Materials Scientist, Data Scientist, and educator based in the Seattle area. This website is my portal for sharing my projects and educational materials online.

You can find various projects, tutoring lessons, updates, and other content on my blog. You can also learn more about me or get in touch.

Project Showcase

Measuring Color

Light can have any arbitrary wavelength, yet we can trick the human eye into thinking it sees a real image by mixing just three wavelengths corresponding to red, green, and blue light. When I was presented with the problem of measuring color, I wound up learning a lot about how human vision works.

Research Team Management Automation

In the summer of 2018, I had a large research campaign to conduct and three undergraduate assistants to get it done. I needed a mechanism to organize the large amount of data we would generate as well as a strategy for guiding my team. So I used one problem to solve the other: I developed a management strategy and software tools which used my data management strategy to help me direct the team’s day-to-day activities.

K: The Stress Intensity Factor

The stress intensity factor, K, is commonly used a measurement of a material’s fracture toughness, i.e. the degree to which that material resists the spread of a crack. However, K relates to a very specific set of conditions from linear-elastic deformation theory. This post explains how K is related to a specific theory and set of conditions, and why it is important to keep those assumptions in mind when considering using K as a fracture toughness measurement.

The Silly π Question

π is an irrational number with endless number of decimal places, and it is an important constant in practically every branch of mathematics and science. Wrapping your head around the idea of an infinite decimal can be tough. This post is an attempt to clear things up by attacking the very silly, but interesting, question: what happens when we try to write π backwards?