This thread about the engineer who warned about a bridge collapse reminded me of this, one of my favorite pieces of engineering-related writing ever. For background, in the wake of the Challenger...
This thread about the engineer who warned about a bridge collapse reminded me of this, one of my favorite pieces of engineering-related writing ever.
For background, in the wake of the Challenger explosion in 1986, a Presidential commission released a report detailing what went wrong leading up to the event. Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman wrote this appendix in his trademark very readable, no-bullishit style, compared to the dry written-by-committee style of the rest of the report.
The last line really says it all: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." There are also some youtube videos of Feynman...
The last line really says it all:
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over
public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
There are also some youtube videos of Feynman speaking with a head NASA engineer regarding one of the failures.
This thread about the engineer who warned about a bridge collapse reminded me of this, one of my favorite pieces of engineering-related writing ever.
For background, in the wake of the Challenger explosion in 1986, a Presidential commission released a report detailing what went wrong leading up to the event. Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman wrote this appendix in his trademark very readable, no-bullishit style, compared to the dry written-by-committee style of the rest of the report.
The last line really says it all:
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over
public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
There are also some youtube videos of Feynman speaking with a head NASA engineer regarding one of the failures.