Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.
The motors I build there were exactly as I imagined them. I made no attempt to improve the design, but merely reproduced the pictures as they appeared to my vision and the operation was always as I expected.
Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers - which is why almost no technology ever works.
The core of what I do is solve problems, whether that's in graphic engine flow or rockets. I like working on things that are going to have an impact one way or the other.
I studied mechanical engineering at Princeton and worked on solar energy after graduation.
Design has to work. Art does not.
No matter what engineering field you're in, you learn the same basic science and mathematics. And then maybe you learn a little bit about how to apply it.
One has to look out for engineers - they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.
Many of the engineers I interviewed worked on reverse-engineering technology. It's a hallmark of Area 51.
It's tens of millions of calculations just to design one connection between a piece of structural steel and another piece of structural steel.
A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build.
At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.
My first degree was in structural engineering, which is super-boring.
Keep in mind that if you take a tour through a hospital and look at every machine with on and off switch that is brought into the service of diagnosing the human condition, that machine is based on principles of physics discovered by a physicist in a machine designed by an engineer.
Case studies of failure should be made a part of the vocabulary of every engineer so that he or she can recall or recite them when something in a new design or design process is suggestive of what went wrong in the case study.
I've always, since I was a kid, been interested in how things work.
My mother was a consulting dietician, and my father was a consulting engineer.
Everything that wasn't invented by God is invented by an engineer.
I can contribute to the field of music, I would not have been able to contribute to the field of engineering.
I am going to design, in a great hurry, and I believe to build a station after my own fancy; that is, with engineering roofs, etc. etc. It is at Paddington, in cutting, and admitting of no exterior, all interior and all roofed in.
I think maths is the root of everything. If we understood every area of math, it would lead to improving our sense of science, physics, engineering, space travel... all those great things. Maths is a backbone for it.
First we build people, then we build cars.
When I got started in my own engineering course, my interest in physics and maths was very high. After all, engineering is all about applied maths and physics. If I were to learn anything further in physics or mathematics, it simply was not there.
I'm fearless when it comes to engineering and motors and gears and pulleys and glass and artwork.
The space shuttle was designed, at least in part, to broaden our knowledge of the universe. To scientists, the vehicle was a tool; to engineers, it was their creation.
