Quotes About Engineering

Machines belong to the second category of inventions, that of new and more or less complex devices or mechanisms deployed for both stationary use and transportation.

In 1901 the Maybach-designed Mercedes 35 was the first essentially modern motor vehicle: still without any roof but including four cylinders, two carburetors, mechanical inlet valves, an aluminum engine block, a gear stick in a gate, a honeycomb radiator, and rubber tires.

Every modern refrigeration system has the same four parts: compressor, condenser, expansion valve, and evaporator, and the Perkins cycle became the foundation of new industrial refrigeration projects. In 1855 came the first ice-making plant, in Cleveland; in 1861 the first meat-freezing plant, in Sydney.

steel, ammonia, cement, and plastics.

The first commercial jetliner, the ill-fated British Comet (whose four deadly accidents were not caused by jet engines but by stress around square window frames that eventually led to catastrophic decompression), entered its brief service in 1952 at M 0.7, and the first successful and widely adopted jetliner, Boeing's 707, began its scheduled flights in October 1958 at M 0.83.

four pillars of modern civilization: ammonia, steel, concrete, and plastics.

Engineers participate in the activities which make the resources of nature available in a form beneficial to man and provide systems which will perform optimally and economically.

In fact, the tunnel curves between Knightsbridge and South Kensington stations because it was impossible to drill through the mass of skeletal remains buried in Hyde Park.

In order to express the reality of my past, I would have to reach a public whose point of reference was deliberately distorted through social engineering.

Yeah," he said, rolling his eyes. "Because when I think 'game architect' and 'engineering,' I think 'extrovert.

With engineering, I view this year's failure as next year's opportunity to try it again. Failures are not something to be avoided. You want to have them happen as quickly as you can so you can make progress rapidly.

there was more to modern mining than logic. The best engineers had feel. It was a sensitivity born of experience, of talent, and even of something like love, with which they commanded, not only the mountains, but the machine they rode and directed. Now this too was added to the list of man's endeavors for which some special talent was needed.

You talk about German technocracy and you get automobiles.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the United States would have to spend $3.6 trillion more than currently budgeted just to bring our infrastructure up to acceptable levels by 2020.95 China and India are spending almost 10 percent of GDP on infrastructure; Europe, around 5 percent.96 Even Mexico spends just over 3 percent.97 The United States has not broken 3 percent once since the mid-1970s.98

good academic students were discouraged from taking technical courses, even if the student intended to study engineering at university.

As an engineer he favored blunt speech

Yes, the world is changing, and will continue to do so. But that does not mean we should stop the search for timeless principles. Think of it this way: While the practices of engineering continually evolve and change, the laws of physics remain relatively fixed. I like to think of our work as a search for timeless principles—

Lee knew that the key to victory lay not only in terms of engineering or mathematics, but in a crew's ability to adjust psychologically to the unexpected.

sluice gate. Then they opened the door and opened the hatch

mandelbrot changed the way ibm's engineers thought about the cause of noise. bursts of errors had always sent the engineers looking for a man sticking a screwdriver somewhere.

The Difference Engine stands—for a replica works today, in the Science Museum in London—as a milestone of what could be achieved in precision engineering. In the composition of its alloys, the exactness of its dimensions, the interchangeability of its parts, nothing surpassed this segment of an unfinished machine. Still, it was a curio. And it was as far as Babbage could go.

It is very expensive to achieve high unreliability. It is not uncommon to increase the cost of an item by a factor of ten for each factor of ten degradation accomplished.

I would say that engineering has been a very positive experience overall, but usually coming into the situation it would be one of being underestimated. People would actually have low expectations. But I would take advantage of it quite honestly, because I would take my time to underestimate the situation.

I got my undergraduate degree in chemical engineering.