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Make, Think, Imagine by
An impassioned defense of progress and innovation--and an argument for social responsibility from engineer, businessman, and former CEO of BP Lord John Browne. Today's unprecedented pace of change leaves many people wondering what new technologies are doing to our lives. Has social media robbed us of our privacy and fed us with false information? Are the decisions about our health, security and finances made by computer programs inexplicable and biased? Will these algorithms become so complex that we can no longer control them? Are robots going to take our jobs? Can we provide housing for our ever-growing urban populations? And has our demand for energy driven the Earth's climate to the edge of catastrophe? John Browne argues that we need not and must not put the brakes on technological advance. Civilization is founded on engineering innovation; all progress stems from the human urge to make things and to shape the world around us, resulting in greater freedom, health and wealth for all. Drawing on history, his own experiences and conversations with many of today's great innovators, he uncovers the basis for all progress and its consequences, both good and bad. He argues compellingly that the same spark that triggers each innovation can be used to counter its negative consequences. Make, Think, Imagine provides an eloquent blueprint for how we can keep moving towards a brighter future.
How to Be an Engineer by
Clearly explained engineering concepts and fun, simple projects give kids ages 7-9 the chance to put their STEAM knowledge to the test! Teach kids to think like an engineer! The engaging projects in this book will encourage kids to investigate using items from around the house. Build a robot arm out of rulers; learn about jet propulsion with balloons; crush toilet-paper rolls to explore materials; and much more. Read about how engineers use STEAM subjects and their imaginations to think critically and solve problems. Be inspired by engineering heroes such as Leonardo da Vinci, Mae Jemison, and Elon Musk. Fun questions, engineering experiments, and real-life scenarios come together to make engineering relevant. In How to Be an Engineer, the emphasis is on inspiring kids, which means less time at a computer and more time exploring in the real world.
The Perfectionists by
The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement--precision--in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future. The rise of manufacturing could not have happened without an attention to precision. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth-century England, standards of measurement were established, giving way to the development of machine tools--machines that make machines. Eventually, the application of precision tools and methods resulted in the creation and mass production of items from guns and glass to mirrors, lenses, and cameras--and eventually gave way to further breakthroughs, including gene splicing, microchips, and the Hadron Collider. Simon Winchester takes us back to origins of the Industrial Age, to England where he introduces the scientific minds that helped usher in modern production: John Wilkinson, Henry Maudslay, Joseph Bramah, Jesse Ramsden, and Joseph Whitworth. It was Thomas Jefferson who later exported their discoveries to the fledgling United States, setting the nation on its course to become a manufacturing titan. Winchester moves forward through time, to today's cutting-edge developments occurring around the world, from America to Western Europe to Asia. As he introduces the minds and methods that have changed the modern world, Winchester explores fundamental questions. Why is precision important? What are the different tools we use to measure it? Who has invented and perfected it? Has the pursuit of the ultra-precise in so many facets of human life blinded us to other things of equal value, such as an appreciation for the age-old traditions of craftsmanship, art, and high culture? Are we missing something that reflects the world as it is, rather than the world as we think we would wish it to be? And can the precise and the natural co-exist in society?
Engineering Invention by
The technological breakthroughs and entrepreneurial adventures of Frank J. Sprague during the transformative years of the early electrical industry. Over the course of a little less than twenty years, inventor Frank J. Sprague (1857-1934) achieved an astonishing series of technological breakthroughs--from pioneering work in self-governing motors to developing the first full-scale operational electric railway system--all while commercializing his inventions and promoting them (and himself as their inventor) to financial backers and the public. In Engineering Invention, Frederick Dalzell tells Sprague's story, setting it against the backdrop of one of the most dynamic periods in the history of technology. In a burst of innovation during these years, Sprague and his contemporaries--Thomas Edison, Nicolas Tesla, Elmer Sperry, George Westinghouse, and others--transformed the technologies of electricity and reshaped modern life. After working briefly for Edison, Sprague started the Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company; designed and built an electric railroad system for Richmond, Virginia; sold his company to Edison and went into the field of electric elevators; almost accidentally discovered a multiple-control system that could equip electric train systems for mass transit; started a third company to commercialize this; then sold this company to Edison and retired (temporarily). Throughout his career, Dalzell tells us, Sprague framed technology as invention, cast himself as hero, and staged his technologies as dramas. He toiled against the odds, scraped together resources to found companies, bet those companies on technical feats--and pulled it off, multiple times. The idea of the "heroic inventor" is not, of course, the only way to frame the history of technology. Nevertheless, as Dalzell shows, Sprague, Edison, and others crafted the role consciously and actively, using it to generate vital impetus behind the process of innovation.
The Engineering Project by
We all live our daily lives surrounded by the products of technology that make what we do simpler, faster, and more efficient. These are benefits we often just take for granted. But at the same time, as these products disburden us of unwanted tasks that consumed much time and effort in earlier eras, many of them also leave us more disengaged from our natural and even human surroundings. It is the task of what Gene Moriarty calls focal engineering to create products that will achieve a balance between disburdenment and engagement: "How much disburdenment will be appropriate while still permitting an engagement that enriches one's life, elevates the spirit, and calls forth a good life in a convivial society?" One of his examples of a focally engineered structure is the Golden Gate Bridge, which "draws people to it, enlivens and elevates the human spirit, and resonates with the world of its congenial setting. Humans, bridge, and world are in tune." These values of engagement, enlivenment, and resonance are key to the normative approach Moriarty brings to the profession of engineering, which traditionally has focused mainly on technical measures of evaluation such as efficiency, productivity, objectivity, and precision. These measures, while important, look at the engineered product in a local and limited sense. But "from a broader perspective, what is locally benign may present serious moral problems," undermining "social justice, environmental sustainability, and health and safety of affected parties." It is this broader perspective that is championed by focal engineering, the subject of Part III of the book, which Moriarty contrasts with "modern" engineering in Part I and "pre-modern" engineering in Part II.
Engineering Rules by
The first global history of voluntary consensus standard setting. Finalist, Hagley Prize in Business History, The Hagley Museum and Library / The Business History Conference Private, voluntary standards shape almost everything we use, from screw threads to shipping containers to e-readers. They have been critical to every major change in the world economy for more than a century, including the rise of global manufacturing and the ubiquity of the internet. In Engineering Rules, JoAnne Yates and Craig N. Murphy trace the standard-setting system's evolution through time, revealing a process with an astonishingly pervasive, if rarely noticed, impact on all of our lives. This type of standard setting was established in the 1880s, when engineers aimed to prove their status as professionals by creating useful standards that would be widely adopted by manufacturers while satisfying corporate customers. Yates and Murphy explain how these engineers' processes provided a timely way to set desirable standards that would have taken much longer to emerge from the market and that governments were rarely willing to set. By the 1920s, the standardizers began to think of themselves as critical to global prosperity and world peace. After World War II, standardizers transcended Cold War divisions to create standards that made the global economy possible. Finally, Yates and Murphy reveal how, since 1990, a new generation of standardizers has focused on supporting the internet and web while applying the same standard-setting process to regulate the potential social and environmental harms of the increasingly global economy. Drawing on archival materials from three continents, Yates and Murphy describe the positive ideals that sparked the standardization movement, the ways its leaders tried to realize those ideals, and the challenges the movement faces today. Engineering Rules is a riveting global history of the people, processes, and organizations that created and maintain this nearly invisible infrastructure of today's economy, which is just as important as the state or the global market.
Engineering Victory by
Superior engineering skills among Union soldiers helped ensure victory in the Civil War. Engineering Victory brings a fresh approach to the question of why the North prevailed in the Civil War. Historian Thomas F. Army, Jr., identifies strength in engineering--not superior military strategy or industrial advantage--as the critical determining factor in the war's outcome. Army finds that Union soldiers were able to apply scientific ingenuity and innovation to complex problems in a way that Confederate soldiers simply could not match. Skilled Free State engineers who were trained during the antebellum period benefited from basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices, and a culture that encouraged learning and innovation. During the war, their rapid construction and repair of roads, railways, and bridges allowed Northern troops to pass quickly through the forbidding terrain of the South as retreating and maneuvering Confederates struggled to cut supply lines and stop the Yankees from pressing any advantage. By presenting detailed case studies from both theaters of the war, Army clearly demonstrates how the soldiers' education, training, and talents spelled the difference between success and failure, victory and defeat. He also reveals massive logistical operations as critical in determining the war's outcome.
Frontiers of Engineering by
This volume of Frontiers of Engineering presents papers on the topics covered at the National Academy of Engineering's 2019 US Frontiers of Engineering Symposium, hosted by Boeing in North Charleston, South Carolina, September 25-27. At the annual 2 1/2-day event, 100 of this country's best and brightest early-career engineers - from academia, industry, and government and a variety of engineering disciplines - learn from their peers about pioneering work in different areas of engineering. Frontiers of Engineering conveys the excitement of this unique meeting and highlights innovative developments in engineering research and technical work.
Marine Engineering by
Marine transportation is considered as an integral part of the global economy as more than 90 per cent of global trade goods are carried through the sea. The shipping industry underwent a tremendous growth during the last century (from 2.6 billion tons annual shipments in 1970 to 9.2 billion tons annual shipments in 2012). The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has been vigorously seeking for new measures for further improvements in energy efficiency and emissions reduction, and swift implementation of these measures to reduce the harmful emissions from international shipping. Chapter One provides the basic formulation of a coupled finite element of interface. It is followed by two examples of applications related to the vertical (uplift) or lateral loading of a suction caisson. In Chapter Two, the authors try to introduce some examples of propulsion layouts related to their previous experience introducing simplified criteria for a global design of the propulsion layout. This is achieved by melting mechatronics, fluid dynamics and more generally miscellaneous engineering topics that are often deeply studied by different working teams with different competences. In Chapter Three, a comprehensive overview of green ship technologies is presented which includes basic concepts, principles and potential, related core issues and possible solutions.
Project Engineering by
For newly hired young engineers assigned to their first real 'project', there has been little to offer in the way of advice on 'where to begin', 'what to look out for and avoid', and 'how to get the job done right'. This book gives this advice from an author with long experience as senior engineer in government and industry (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Exxon-Mobil). Beginning with guidance on understanding the typical organizational structure of any type of technical firm or company, author Plummer incorporates numerous hands-on examples and provides help on getting started with a project team, understanding key roles, and avoiding common pitfalls. In addition, he offers unique help on first-time experiences of working in other countries with engineering cultures that can be considerably different from the US.
