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" Betting on the success of innovative technologies in the marketplace can carry all the uncertainty and risk that betting on the next card in the deck does at a blackjack table in Las Vegas. There is a factor of randomness that must be factored in, but precisely how to do so is anyone's guess. "

Henry Petroski

Uncertainty

Risk

Success

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" It is really want, rather than need, that drives the process of technological evolution. "

" If I could go upstairs and write every day, I would be happy. I don't need recreation. "

" 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 engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world - not just study it. "

" 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. "

" Many new technologies come with a promise to change the world, but the world refuses to cooperate. "

" 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. "

" Companies selling a product play down its vulnerability and emphasize its robustness. But only after technology leaves the dock is it really tested. For human operators in control of a supposedly infallible system, complacency and overconfidence can take over, and caution may be thrown to the wind. "

" Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection. "

" An over-reliance on past successes is a sure blueprint for future failures. "

" Design is nothing if not decision making. "

" Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail. "

" I'm a firm believer that no matter how small an object is, you can find interesting things out about it and its history. "

" 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. "

" Science is about knowing; engineering is about doing. "

" I was always told that I was good in mathematics, and I guess my grades and standardized test scores supported that. My worst subjects were those that generally involved a lot of reading - English and history. So, having good test scores in math and mediocre ones in reading, I was naturally advised to major in engineering in college. "

" Any design, whether it's for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures. "

" 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. "

" You can almost say that a design error is a human error because, after all, it's we humans who do the designing. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Typically, highway bridges have about 50 years. But over in England, they have iron bridges approaching 250 years. In France, there are Roman aqueducts that are approaching 2,000 years old. So a bridge can last a very long time if it's built properly in the first place and then maintained properly. "

" 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. "

" My first book, 'To Engineer Is Human,' was prompted by nonengineer friends asking me why so many technological accidents and failures were occurring. If engineers knew what they were doing, why did bridges and buildings fall down? It was a question that I had often asked myself, and I had no easy answer. "

Henry Petroski

Bridges

Fall

" It has been said, by engineers themselves, that given enough money, they can accomplish virtually anything: send men to the moon, dig a tunnel under the English Channel. There's no reason they couldn't likewise devise ways to protect infrastructure from the worst hurricanes, earthquakes and other calamities, natural and manmade. "

" Failures are much more dramatic than successes, and people like drama. I think this is why automobile races draw such crowds. People expect spectacular crashes, which we tend to find more interesting than cars just racing around the track. The same is true of bridges, buildings, or any structure or machine. "

" Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft. "

" 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. "

" A common misconception about how things such as space shuttles come to be is that engineers simply apply the theories and equations of science. But this cannot be done until the new thing-to-be is conceived in the engineer's mind's eye. Rather than following from science, engineered things lead it. "

" It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an accompanying unintended disadvantage. "