Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Form follows failure.
Design is nothing if not decision making.
Science is about knowing; engineering is about doing.
Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.
Our expectations for a technology rise with its advancement.
Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.
An over-reliance on past successes is a sure blueprint for future failures.
If I could go upstairs and write every day, I would be happy. I don't need recreation.
As engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world - not just study it.
It is really want, rather than need, that drives the process of technological evolution.
Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft.
Many new technologies come with a promise to change the world, but the world refuses to cooperate.
Any design, whether its for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.
Any design, whether it's for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.
Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.
Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection.
You can almost say that a design error is a human error because, after all, it's we humans who do the designing.
No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.
I'm a firm believer that no matter how small an object is, you can find interesting things out about it and its history.
No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well as its ardent admirers.
Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst.
It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an accompanying unintended disadvantage.
We can't simply blame the engineers when things go wrong because, no matter how well they plan, things don't always go according to plan.
Luxury, not necessity, is the mother of invention. Every artifact is somewhat wanting in its function, and that is what drives its evolution.
Everything we do is designed, whether we're producing a magazine, a website, or a bridge. Design is really the creative invention that designs everything.
As long as there are things to wonder about, there are stories to be written about them. That makes me happy, because writing about things seems to be my thing.
The space shuttle was designed, at least in part, to broaden our knowledge of the universe. To scientists, the vehicle was a tool; to engineers, it was their creation.
The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.
The same aspirations to celebrate and uplift the spirit that drove the Egyptians to build the pyramids are still driving us. The things we're doing differ only in magnitude.
All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.
Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.
The bookshelf, like the book, has become an integral part of civilization as we know it, its presence in a home practically defining what it means to be civilized, educated, and refined.
I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, because without a failure criterion against which to measure the calculated result, it is a meaningless number.
The Book of the Heart provides a fresh perspective on the influence of the book as artifact on our language and culture. Reading this book broadens our appreciation of the relationship between things and ideas.
The definition of 'safe' is not strictly an engineering term; it's a societal term. Does it mean absolutely no loss of life? Does it mean absolutely no contamination with radiation? What exactly does 'safe' mean?
There's so much written about the Titanic, and it's hard to separate what's fact and what's fiction. My understanding is that the way the Titanic was designed, the emphasis was placed on surviving a head-on collision.
Because every design must satisfy competing objectives, there necessarily has to be compromise among, if not the complete exclusion of, some of those objectives, in order to meet what are considered the more important of them.
Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she can recall or recite them when something in a new design or design process is suggestive of what went wrong in the case study.
What is commonly overlooked in using the computer is the fact that the central goal of design is still to obviate failure, and thus it is critical to identify exactly how a structure may fail. The computer cannot do this by itself . . .
Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.
I relax by looking at things and reading about things. Even the simplest thing can reveal a great deal about the world around us. It relaxes me greatly to sit back with my feet up and look around my study at the everyday things that surround me.
A failed structure provides a counterexample to a hypothesis and shows us incontrovertibly what cannot be done, while a structure that stands without incident often conceals whatever lessons or caveats it might hold for the next generation of engineers.
Although engineers want always to make everything better, they cannot make anything perfect. This basic characteristic flaw of the products of the profession's practitioners is what drives change and makes achievement a process rather than simply a goal.
The paradox is that when we model future designs on past successes, we are inviting failure down the line; when we take into account past failures and anticipate potential new ways in which failure can occur, we are more likely to produce successful designs.
Many of the familiar little things that we use every day have typically evolved over a period of time to a state of familiarity. They balance form and function, elegance and economy, success and failure in ways that are not only acceptable, but also admirable.
Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expectations of technology. They know that the perfect system is the stuff of science fiction, not of engineering fact, and so everything must be treated with respect.
Engineering, like poetry, is an attempt to approach perfection. And engineers, like poets, are seldom completely satisfied with their creations. They notice, even if no one else does, the world that is not quite le mot juste, or the hairline crack that blemishes the structure.
For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by things large and small. I wanted to know what made my watch tick, my radio play, and my house stand. I wanted to know who invented the bottle cap and who designed the bridge. I guess from early on I wanted to be an engineer.
I have always been fascinated by the way things work and how they came to take the form that they did. Writing about these things satisfies my curiosity about the made world while at the same time giving me an opportunity to design a new explanation for the processes that shape it.
Too much redesign has to do more with fad and fashion than with fitness and function. It is change for the sake of change. Such redesign is not only unnecessary, it is all too often also retrogressive, leading to things that work less effectively than those they were designed to replace.