Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expectations of technology. They know that the perfect system is the stuff of science fiction, not of engineering fact, and so everything must be treated with respect.

Henry Petroski
Some Similar Quotes
  1. The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they... - Neil Degrasse Tyson
  2. And sometimes I believe your relentless analysis of June leaves something out, which is your feeling for her beyond knowledge, or in spite of knowledge. I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop and just worship; and you... - Unknown
  3. The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. - Isaac Asimov
  4. I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here. - Arthur C. Clarke
  5. A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. - Charles Darwin
More Quotes By Henry Petroski
  1. Because they are so humbled by their creations, engineers are naturally conservative in their expectations of technology. They know that the perfect system is the stuff of science fiction, not of engineering fact, and so everything must be treated with respect.
  2. 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.
  3. Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.
  4. The paradox is that when we model future designs on past successes, we are inviting failure down the line; when we take into account past failures and anticipate potential new ways in which failure can occur, we are more likely to produce successful designs.
  5. Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she can recall or recite them when something in a new design or design process is suggestive of what went wrong in the case study.
Related Topics