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" Luxury, not necessity, is the mother of invention. Every artifact is somewhat wanting in its function, and that is what drives its evolution. "
Henry Petroski
Evolution
Luxury
Invention
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
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" An over-reliance on past successes is a sure blueprint for future failures. "
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" Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail. "
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" Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
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" 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. "
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Success
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
Process
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Change
" 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. "
Henry Petroski
World
Reading
Great
" Science is about knowing; engineering is about doing. "
Henry Petroski
Engineering
Knowing
Doing
" 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. "
Henry Petroski
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" Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection. "
Henry Petroski
Imperfection
Perfection
Achievement
" I'm a firm believer that no matter how small an object is, you can find interesting things out about it and its history. "
Henry Petroski
Find
History
Interesting
" It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an accompanying unintended disadvantage. "
Henry Petroski
Law
Through
Advantage
" I employ case studies of failure into my courses, emphasizing that they teach us much more than studies of success. It is not that success stories cannot serve as models of good design or as exemplars of creative engineering. They can do that, but they cannot teach us how close to failure they are. "
Henry Petroski
Good
Success
Failure
" We call the fates of the Titanic and the Concordia - as well as those of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia - 'accidents.' Foreseeing such undesirable events is what engineers are expected to do. However, design trade-offs leave technological systems open to failings once predicted, but later forgotten. "
Henry Petroski
Engineers
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Space
" 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
Me
Fall
" Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst. "
Henry Petroski
Frustration
Knowledge
Failure
" 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. "
Henry Petroski
Engineering
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
Wisdom
Design
Assumptions
" 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. "
Henry Petroski
Think
True
People
" No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well as its ardent admirers. "
Henry Petroski
Critics
Well
Matter
" 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. "
Henry Petroski
Bridge
Bridges
Iron
" 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. "
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" 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. "
Henry Petroski
Down
Failure
Future