Henry Petroski Quotes
The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.
No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.
Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.
The bookshelf, like the book, has become an integral part of civilization as we know it, its presence in a home practically defining what it means to be civilized, educated, and refined.
All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.
Any design, whether its for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.
It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an accompanying unintended disadvantage.
No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well as its ardent admirers.
As engineers, we were going to be in a position to change the world - not just study it.
You can almost say that a design error is a human error because, after all, it's we humans who do the designing.
Any design, whether it's for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.
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.
Successful design is not the achievement of perfection but the minimization and accommodation of imperfection.
Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst.
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.