As designs get more technologically complex, Henry Petroski, professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University and the author most recently of To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure, says it's more important to study patterns of failure in past projects -- and in historical incidents like the sinking of the Titanic.
Comments [9]
Howdy! My name is Rafael and I personally just desired
to say your weblog rocks! It's hilarious because I use to have a weblog that almost had an identical web address: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2012/apr/11/learning-engineering-failure/ mine was only a few letters different. Nonetheless, I'm a big supporter of your blog and if you ever want a
guest write-up you should email me personally at: joellanger@zoho.
com. I absolutely love writing!
Blame Management and typical British hubris.
The Titanic and racism:
Wow, ol' CheezleWhiz comes through, yet again!
On the Titanic, it was the rivets. They had too much slag in them. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/15titanic.html.
The Times science section also had an article about how the design of the Twin Towers led to the way they collapsed.
I heard the learned guest say "it should help." should is the most dangerous word in the English language, to my experience.
To Martin
I have long held the belief that "social science" is an oxymoron. IF we still can't even engineer buildings from collapsing,how can those who failed math and physics think they can engineer society without it collapsing even faster than usual?
In terms of not learning from past failures. An article in the New York Times today: Lenders Are Again Dealing Credit to Risky Clients
Perhaps Mr Petroski can shed light on unique engineering aspects of the former Twin Towers?
One of the main contentions by crazy 911 Truthers is that no other building ever collapsed inwardly in such rapid fashion. Thus, they claim, there had to be exposive charges planted.
Questions: How were the Towers designed differently than most others to account for the way it collapsed? How would most other buildings have collapsed? Would they have collapsed? Why did building 7 collapse?
Also, there were many architectural studies on the matter by many companies and agencies of government. Why aren't they readily available on the internet to counter Truther ignorance?
Brian, please ask if there is a model for applying the same scrutiny to "social engineering"?? Then we could assess the lack of efficacy (stagnant/falling educational performance in our unionized schools)……or even outright harm (the dissolution of the nuclear family and a 75% single parent birth rate among African-Americans)…… that the liberal elites have devised for us?
There seems to be no process for “Learning from SOCIAL engineering failure” and no desire by the media for government accountability of its countless programs, many of them now 40+ years old.
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