[E. Pluribus Unum]

I have a deeper worry that math itself is slipping away into the wispy clouds of software that surround us. I walk down the aisles of laboratories, and I see engineers staring vacantly into monitors, their desks piled high with anachronistic paper detritus. Is anyone doing math by hand any longer, I wonder? Do they miss the cerebral nourishment of solving equations? Perhaps math in the future will be the exclusive province of a cult of priests that embeds its capability in shrink-wrapped, encrypted software.

[Mark Felton]

He stands on the shoulders of giants.

Or perhaps he is lamenting that engineers now are mostly corporate slave technicians, managed by non-engineers without intellect, vision, dreams or passion.

[joesnuffy]

Dont fear the reaper... Kansas :)

[Sloth]

The houses aren't real? Sounds like he's been smoking wacky weed.

Anyhow, yes, that Edison thing IS what I signed up for when I went to engineering school, and NO, it hasn't actually turned out better than that. I was sold a bill of goods... should have declined the scholarships and become a plumber instead.

[Consort]

Future engineers will be "designer/breeder" engineers as designed or breeded by genetic engineers.

[esopman]

Thanks for posting this. The writer is giving his age away: 'I miss Heathkits...' 'Bakelite meters...' He is of my generation. E-school in the 1960's.

Engineering is a challenging curriculum - I have a nephew at Carnegie Mellon and he is doing math in his second year that I did in my fourth. I ain't worried about the engineers - I'm worried about the LIBERAL arts and the indoctrination that passes for education.

I retrained in corporate finance many years ago and have met many engineers who did likewise. Gotta tell you that they are primarily problem-solvers and have done very well indeed.

The writer shouldn't be wringing his hands about the technology. It's great. The use of it by a morally decadent, ethically corrupt, Godless political class (e.g. Bubba Rex and Hillary Regina) is another matter. The next couple of decades are gonna get real interesting.

Blessings on Freepers Everywhere.

[Barry Goldwater]

I find engineering to be a highly rewarding and satisfying occupation. The key to this is to take on the hardest, most challenging work and never let an employer get in your way - take the initiative, start your own business and think outside the box (no cook books!). I have little sympathy for an employee who complains about the work, then takes a paycheck and doesn't move on. The career stinks only because you made it that way and you only get what you negotiate for. The computer simulations allow me to solve bigger, more complex problems. I can design things no one would dare attempt 30 years ago. Any tool is simply an extension of the man using it. If you don't like engineering, seeks another carrer. Life is short so why waste it on something that makes you unhappy.

[boris]

"ILLUSTRATION: HAL MAYFORTH"

Beautiful, too...I guess.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Perhaps math in the future will be the exclusive province of a cult of priests

A concept taken to extremes in the novel "Dune".

[70times7]

A man in a hot air balloon was lost so he reduced altitude when he saw someone below. When he was close enough he shouted, “Excuse me, I need your help! I promised a friend I would meet him over an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.” The man below replied, “You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet off of the ground.”

“You must be an engineer”, replied the balloonist. “I am,” replied the man, “how did you know?” “Well,” answered the balloonist, “although everything you have said is technically correct, I have no idea what to make of the information. I am still lost, and now I am even further behind schedule. Frankly, you have been of no help at all.”

“You must be a manager”, said the engineer. “I am,” replied the balloonist, “how did you know?” “Well,” answered the engineer, “You have risen to where you are chiefly due to a large quantity of hot air. You have made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. I have provided to you the information you requested and you don’t know what to do with it because of your own ignorance. The fact is you are in exactly the same situation you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

Cry me a river. There will always be a need for the those that have cultivated the proper problem solving and creative skills that computers will never replace. This is not about the future of engineering, it's a semi-nostalgic daydream by someone who needed to write an article about the future of engineering...and didn't, but I bet his/her manager was pleased.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Why is a discussion of the future of engineering germane to conservatism? Because conservatism is about the future. Conservatism is the result of attempting to look far enough into the future to avoid running the our nation into an iceberg like the Titanic. We are conservative because we believe the iceberg is possible, yet that we are not presently committed beyond recall toward one.

Thus we seek to see farther into the future than "the children" and their own immediate education. We see that they are necessary but not sufficient; we are concerned with what their children and grandchildren will learn and how they will think and act.

That perspective makes us look to the immediate and even the distant past, to discern what has been most important over serious historical periods of time. We judge that what has been important in the past, and which still matters today, will probably still be important in the distant future.

In short we reject the radical perspective that "In the long run we're all dead." We are conservative because we belive in the future--as Ronald Reagan did. Reagan modeled a future for Russia, and the vision of what it could be--and the knowledge that the USSR could never match that, imploded the Soviet Union from within.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Things have been drifting that way for at least 40 years or more.