Engineering a Safer, More Beautiful World, One Failure at a Time

NY Times ^ | May 2, 2006 | CORNELIA DEAN

[neverdem]

DURHAM, N.C. — For an engineer, Henry Petroski seems strangely enthusiastic about failure.

Not his own, of course. Fear of failure is what sent him, with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, to graduate school rather than to work, and then to a career of teaching and writing, not designing and building.

From his vantage point, failures in design and construction present perfect teaching opportunities. They are object lessons in the history and practice and beauty of engineering. "Failure is central to engineering," he said in an interview. "Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail."

So whether the subject is the building specs in "The Three Little Pigs," the development of the flip-top beverage can or the storage of nuclear waste (a current focus of his), Dr. Petroski thinks and writes in terms of failure. Failure looms even in "The Pencil," his 400-plus-page look at the invention, evolution, crafting and use of the writing implement whose points are so prone to breaking. The book was a surprise best seller.

Dr. Petroski, who is 64, has preached his gospel of failure in books, lectures and articles for publications as diverse as Forbes and American Scientist, where he has a regular column. In the process, he has amassed numerous honors and awards, including membership in the National Academy of Engineering. He has also achieved the status that a reviewer in the journal Science predicted for him after the publication in 1985 of his first book, a catalog of calamity called "To Engineer Is Human."

He is "the meistersinger of the guild."

That first book has on its cover a photo of a famous failure, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a graceful span across Puget Sound.

[neverdem]

Jenny Warburg for The New York Times
FOR BETTER BUILDING Henry Petroski, top, at Duke, says success in his profession "is all about understanding how things break or fail." He uses the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, which collapsed over Puget Sound in 1940, as an example of things that go wrong.

[DB]

It would seem someone that teaches engineering ought to have some experience actually doing engineering work that is actually implemented.

[Pikachu_Dad]

here, here.

[neverdem]

"It would seem someone that teaches engineering ought to have some experience actually doing engineering work that is actually implemented."

The last sentence in the article:

But, he said: "I have been told by a good number of engineers that they give my books to young engineers because they do see the value in this message. This is very heartening, because I am getting the validation of the real engineers."

He found his calling in writing about failure analysis. More power to him.

[thomaswest]

Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

Every single speech that a politician makes is a failure calculation.

Make the speech, mumble a lot, pray often, invoke a higher power on your side, and get out of town as fast as possible.

[timer]

Maybe a lesson in viruses is instructive : you make a drug that kills 99.99% of them but ONE or TWO of them survive because they are "super bugs", and thus reproduce a drug-resistant new strain of viruses. This is a BIG problem in the medical field. Now apply that to people, the failures are the dirt tomorrow's successful "super bugs" walk on. Now apply that to the return of Jesus and the DESTROYER, the DESTROYER is the "drug" that kills 99.99% of the human "germ" but a few have the right immunity(JESUS)and become the new world's success story...are you one of those "super bugs"?

[manwiththehands]

"Failure is central to engineering."

I have a Thomas Edison quote posted on the wall in my office: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

[caver]

It's also been said that those who can't do it, teach.

[jiggyboy]

His books are classics in the field but very easy to read. His summary of the Kansas City Hyatt disaster (two linked overhead walkways collapsed on opening night) is something they should cover in every high school physics class in the nation.

[raybbr]

It would seem someone that teaches engineering ought to have some experience actually doing engineering work that is actually implemented.

I can't tell you how many times I wanted the engineer who designed the machines I have to work on to come out and twist his body into a pretzel or stick his head into a space just barely big enough to fit in order to do a repair on that machine.