To engineer is human
the role of failure in successful design
by Henry Petroski · first published 1982
92% recommend8% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Case histories of bridge and structural failures showing why failure is inherent to engineering and how each collapse teaches the next design. Recommended to software engineers for lessons on blameless failure analysis.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
How did a simple design error cause one of the great disasters of the 1980s--the collapse of the walkways at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel? What made the graceful and innovating Tacoma Narrows Bridge twist apart in a mild wind in 1940? How did an oversize waterlily inspire the magnificent Crystal Palace, the crowning achievement of Victorian architecture and engineering? These are some of the failures and successes that Petroski examines in this book, a work that looks at our deepest notions of progress and perfection, tracing the fine connection between the quantifiable realm of science
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Gall, Systemantics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics Petroski, To Engineer is Human: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroski#Works
on “Ask HN: Best Tech Books that are not manuals/instructional” ↗…discuss software engineering. I recently had an argument on HN about the particulars of this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8633616 Another book I can recommend on the subject is Petroski's To Engineer is Human.
on “A New Software Engineering” ↗Highly recommend Henry Petroski's book on bridge building https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/to-engineer-is-human-the-role-...
on “Italy bridge: Genoa motorway collapse kills at least 22” ↗…Zelazny (fiction, but transcendent) The Trial of Socrates, by I.F. Stone (makes the case that Socrates was a genuine threat to his society) Any book by Ryszard Kapuscinski The Histories, by Herodotus To Engineer is Human, by Petroski A History of Knowledge, by Charles Van Doren
on “Ask HN: Books That Gratify One's Intellectual Curiosity?” ↗To Engineer is Human, by Henry Petroski http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gfJ0EkrXqg And/or anything else by Petroski http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Petroski Systemantics, by John Gall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics…
on “Key Reads for the young technologist” ↗I've never read this book but of course now I have to. I'll suggest reading Henry Petroski's stuff, too. "The Evolution of Useful Things", "The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance", and "To Engineer is Human" all make the case that the design of things around us are shaped less by insight and more by evolution, incrementally building on the mistakes of the past. If "The Design of Everyday Things" is half…
on “New Course: The Design of Everyday Things” ↗Hentry Petroski's To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design [1] has a chapter on the Hyatt Regency. The whole book is great. [1] http://www.amazon.com/To-Engineer-Is-Human-Successful/dp/067...
on “The Design Flaw That Almost Wiped Out an NYC Skyscraper” ↗Whenever there is a bridge failure (or similar, highly-visible civil engineering failure) I recommend to engineers of all stripes that they go read the works of 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…
on “Italy bridge: Genoa motorway collapse kills at least 22” ↗For software engineering, I recommend A Philosophy of Software Design. It has principles that I think translate well to other engineering fields. For engineering in general: To Engineer is Human - Henry Petroski The Art of Doing Science and Engineering - Richard Hamming Structures: Or Why Things Don't Fall Down - J.E. Gordon
on “Ask HN: Good books on philosophy of engineering?” ↗To Engineer is Human by Petroski. It's about engineering failures and responsibility.
on “Ask HN: Good books on philosophy of engineering?” ↗To engineer is human by Henry Petroski [1982]. The short film of this is also great
on “Ask HN: Good books on philosophy of engineering?” ↗…Martian by Andy Weir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel) To Engineer Is Human - The Role of Failure in Successful Design By Henry Petroski https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/engineeringinsociety/front-ma... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Fe...!
on “Debugging: Indispensable rules for finding even the most elusive problems (2004)” ↗…to stand up, the next bridge was lighter. And the next one after that was even lighter. And so on, until a bridge collapses because some new factor came into play (e.g., harmonic resonance). Source: To Engineer Is Human by Henry Petroski--one of my favorite engineering books.
on “New records on Wendelstein 7-X” ↗Recently I was reading the "To Engineer Is Human" by Henry Petroski, which although is mainly about bridges I find it so inspiring and related to software engineering and systems in general, e.g. the concept of failure by fatigue etc, same for the Antifragility…
on “Books from Unrelated Fields” ↗Henri Petroski in "To Engineer is Human" has a chapter about the advent of the calculator during the slide rule era, and that calculators (and later computers) eroded a structural engineer's "feel for the numbers", caused engineers to pursue…
on “AI advice made people 3x less accurate but 2x confident, researchers found” ↗