Engineers of Dreams
Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America
by Henry Petroski · first published 1995
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In his previous books, Henry Petroski has initiated us into the hidden mysteries of such everyday artifacts as the lead pencil, the paper clip, the zipper, and the Post-it note. Now, with Engineers of Dreams, he makes a jump in scale to contemplate those "dry paths" across the rivers and inlets of our cities, those "hard crossings" over the gulches and ravines of our countrysides, those eminently practical but inescapably aesthetic edifices that persist in taking our breath away (when we're not taking them for granted): bridges. The great era of American bridge building - which from the 1870
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…Henry Petroski. In particular: - To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1985) [1] - Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (1994) [2] and - Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and The Spanning of America (1995) [3] He also wrote a salient op-ed after the 2007 bridge failure in Minneapolis: Learning from bridge failure. [4] [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679734163…
on “Italy bridge: Genoa motorway collapse kills at least 22” ↗…Golden Gate. For examples: - Guinness Book of World Records (1973) made it with the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge - http://books.google.com/books?ei=93b7U_XoBuT5yQPkqYGIBQ&hl=s... - So did Henry Petroski in Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America: http://books.google.com/books?id=1J9qUcgoUvkC&pg=PT460&dq=cu... - and Popular Science in December 1995 http://books.google.com/books?id=7n5BWbJWMXMC&pg=PA102&dq=%2...…
on “Could You See the Curvature of the Earth in This Airport?” ↗