To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design | 
|  | | | Title: | To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design | | Author: | Henry Petroski | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 31 March, 1992 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0679734163 / 9780679734161 | | List Price: | $14.95 | | You Save: | $4.78 | | Amazon Price: | $10.17 | |
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| Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Amazon.com Review
The moral of this book is that behind every great engineering success is a trail of often ignored (but frequently spectacular) engineering failures. Petroski covers many of the best known examples of well-intentioned but ultimately failed design in action -- the galloping Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which you've probably seen tossing cars willy-nilly in the famous black-and-white footage), the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways -- and many lesser known but equally informative examples. The line of reasoning Petroski develops in this book were later formalized into his quasi-Darwinian model of technological evolution in The Evolution of Useful Things, but this book is arguably the more illuminating -- and defintely the more enjoyable -- of these two titles. Highly recommended.
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Customer Reviews:
• Those Who Don't Learn From History Are Doomed To Repeat It! 21 June, 2008
I found the book absolutely fascinating, especially since I am a mechanical engineer by education and experience. To Engineer is Human covers some of the greatest engineering disasters in modern times such as the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways collapse and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Henry Petroski explains the engineering disaster in great detail and then explores the causes and effects. He then explores how (if possible) the disaster could have been avoided.
Well written and understandable this book is a masterpiece. One of the primary things that all good engineers do is to contemplate the "lessons learned" after any significant endeavor...whether it has good or bad results. As the old saying goes: Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it!
Engineers as well as anyone else who has an interest in engineering marvels and what can go wrong will find this book entertaining, informative and well researched.
The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking
- Reviewed by customer ID: AIKVLU1HAV0ZQ
• Tedious Answer To A Stupid Question 04 July, 2006
This book tries to answer the question of why the stuff built by engineers break, what a stupid quesion. Stuff breaks and stops working all the time, that's why we have quality control in factories. If someone thinks we can make something perfectly the first time and every time he must've been born yesterday or smoking. Think about the first plane built or the first car, the first train, the first computer, MP3 players that stops working in a week, umbrellas that flip in the wind... Maybe people don't die when these things break, maybe they do... but this has always been how technology develops---it improves over time.
The title of the book suggests that things built by God do not fail, wrong! Humans get sick, ozone layer gets holes, species go extinct, the Old Man of the Mountain falls flat on his face, and how about birth defects, the list goes on.
Not a well thought out book. And trust me when I say the writing style puts even a true nerd to sleep.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A11QCFL21KOI1I
• Nice Collection Of Essays 11 April, 2007
The title suggests a coherent essay on 'failure', but the actual content is a collection of essays loosely brought together by the theme 'engineering is about preventing failure'. Some chapters focus on the history of engineering, others on the nature of failure. If one essay bores you, just flip to the next chapter. The articles can be read in any order. All in all, a very thought provoking book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AFVBYTVP8C4LW
• To Engineer Is Human - I Engineered A New Beverage Coaster! 19 May, 2006
I purchased this book at the Duke University bookstore, after the recommendation from a professor at another institution.
Petroski's prose is extremely dense and verbose. His style consists of run-on sentences which require several readings. Even if it is technically (grammatically) correct, it is extremely difficult to read. The subject matter is dry to begin with, however, Petroski does nothing to liven it. I am an engineer also, and am not threatened by the technical information (admittedly lifted from his students' term papers). I have chemical engineering textbooks that read like a novel. Hopefully the courses he teaches are clearer than this muddled prose.
Petroski is certainly an engineer. He has engineered an elegant method of making money from saps like us. I successfully engineered Petroski's book into a beverage coaster to help drown the sorrows of wasting $14 on this book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AIW99IBEQ7PDJ
• Engineering Failures 22 April, 2005
In this book, Petroski brings up a few good points. Engineering is human. Engineers, as oppose to what some think, are not perfect. They are not able to create a perfect design for the given problem. They create what they believe is the best solution for the given design specifications. They, along with others, test their solution, in theory. The majority of these solutions are created and succeed perfectly. Although most of these designs are successful, some are not.
It seems to be most of the failures of designs happen when it deals with something big, including the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways, which killed over 100 people, or the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. These failures become famous and the engineers are the first ones to be looked at.
Along with engineering success comes failure. This is a part of being human. Human engineering will always have its failures along with its successes. When engineers build something, they analyze it to determine if their solution is the best solution. Sometimes it takes a failure for the engineers to see their failures and to correct the problem. This book tries to explain this and does in most cases. In some of the cases, it leaves the reader wondering what else could have been done or what needs to be done in the future to prevent these failures.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2LXV6SKYP8RZ8
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