We often hear about better living through science. Yet progress in improving our lives most often comes from engineers rather than scientists. Engineers make the things that improve the human condition. Scientists follow, explaining how and why the things engineers make work, and taking the credit. We speak of rocket science, when it is really rocket engineering.
“The Things We Make: The Unknown History of Invention from Cathedrals to Soda Cans,” by Bill Hammack explores engineering and the engineering method. It shows how invention really works.
Still life of the first electric light bulb, circa 1880, invented by Thomas Alva Edison (and others) in 1879 and patented on Jan. 27, 1880. (Welgos/Getty Images)
Hammack starts by showing why you don’t need to know why something works in order to build it. He opens with a chapter on constructing medieval cathedrals, complex structures that collapse when built badly. He shows how the master mason used rules of thumb, which were developed empirically, to guide construction. This, Hammack reveals, is the engineering method: a process of methodical and actionable problem solving. As Hammack shows, the engineer often doesn’t know why these rules work, just that they do and they deliver the results desired….