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

Change The World

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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. "

" No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well as its ardent admirers. "

" 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? "

" 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. "

" Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

Change The World

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Luxury, not necessity, is the mother of invention. Every artifact is somewhat wanting in its function, and that is what drives its evolution. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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