To Engineer is Human The Role of Failure in Successful Design

Henry Petroski — 2018

“Though ours is an age of high technology, the essence of what engineering is and what engineers do is not common knowledge. Even the most elementary of principles upon which great bridges, jumbo jets, or super computers are built are alien concepts to many. This is so in part because engineering as a human endeavor is not yet integrated into our culture and intellectual tradition. And while educators are currently wrestling with the problem of introducing technology into conventional academic curricula, thus better preparing today’s students for life in a world increasingly technological, there is as yet no consensus as to how technological literacy can best be achieved. " I believe, and I argue in this essay, that the ideas of engineering are in fact in our bones and part of our human nature and experience. Furthermore, I believe that an understanding and an appreciation of engineers and engineering can be gotten without an engineering or technical education. Thus I hope that the technologically uninitiated will come to read what I have written as an introduction to technology. Indeed, this book is my answer to the questions 'What is engineering?' and 'What do engineers do?'" - Henry Petroski, To Engineer is Human

Reviews

Timeo Williams@timeowilliams

Jun 5, 2024

The book entails the process of innovation in the realm of engineering and construction, most notably, bridges. Engineers operate through the scientific method. But as opposed to doctors, of whom their mistakes are buried within a grave, the engineer's work will be out in the open. So how do engineers innovate? Well, believe it or not, mostly through failures. The bridge created 50 years ago, still seems to hold up fine. The projected lifespan of the bridge and the factor of safety as a whole, predicted the bridge would stand for another 5 years, until a crack into the steel finally managed to internally erode the structure at its center of mass. At the same time, the city would like to create another bridge towards the northern outskirts of the city. Engineers have two choices: To stick with the existing design for the bridge created 50 years ago, or to innovate with the advanced materials today, but with a more aesthetically pleasing, yet riskier design, with an overall factor of safety slightly higher than prior, but still, untested in its physical form prior. Hence, the cost of innovation in this realm. Technology has allowed us to use electromagnetic rays against structures to find defects, without the collapse of the structure, but this has only done so much.

Jowanza Joseph@josep2

Jan 20, 2023

This is the first time I read a book that I felt bored by but kept learning something.

Suliman ahmed@sully

Nov 16, 2021