Although it seems obvious, if someone asked me to define engineering, I’m not sure I could do it. could you?
The shortest definition would be that engineering is applied mathematics and physics. that definition can encompass mechanical and aerospace engineering, civil engineering, medical engineering and bioengineering, financial engineering, economics, and many other different applications. its application is sometimes difficult: abstract mathematics and physical models are good in theory, but they have to be used to build things and improve our lives. that’s the job of engineering.
You are reading: Best books on engineering
How did you get into engineering? what was it that attracted you? Was it seeing good cars and wanting to build them, or something else?
Like most children, he began to like bicycles, motorcycles, fast cars and airplanes, which led him to want to understand how they worked. you start out using them for fun, but if you have even the slightest mathematical inclination, you will become familiar with the math and physics of those machines. that will take you in the direction of engineering.
“Abstract mathematics and physical models are good in theory, but they should be used to build things and improve our lives”
But there was something else for me, which wasn’t just about cars, planes and motorcycles. I was always very interested in structures, like suspension bridges, and I wondered: how does a bridge like that really work? how is it designed? that is a very important part of engineering; it’s where engineering meets design or architecture.
let’s move on to your book options. The first is The Simple Science of Flight: From Insects to Jumbo Jets by Henk Tennekes. Can you tell me a bit about why you chose this as one of the five introductory books?
This is perhaps an odd choice for an introductory book, since it’s not about engineering in general. it focuses only on airplanes. Although it is about aerospace engineering, the best thing about this book is that it shows the connection between the natural world and the world of engineering. shows how we can learn from nature.
The author, Henk Tennekes, a Dutch professor of meteorology and aerospace engineering, talks about insects and birds and how they fly, and then tries to find connections to man’s creations. he succeeds in a very beautiful way and shows how what we have learned from nature translates into how we design and build aircraft.
It does not focus on a single type of aircraft, it is about passenger aircraft and transport in general. it is a unique attempt to describe the world of engineering without using many equations. is a very easy to read light book that beautifully demonstrates one of the main engineering principles “form follows function” that connects natural selection and man-made machines.
Tell us more about that connection. explain why an airplane doesn’t look like a bumblebee?
it does. It explains the point of aircraft design very well, differentiating between the most efficient way to fly and the most economical way to fly based on power consumption, structural properties, or weight of the flying object. for example: why are small flying objects in nature (such as insects) built the way they are? then the book goes on to discuss larger birds, nature’s design, and transfers this nicely to human flight. tells us why a helicopter, for example, looks different from a jumbo jet: it all depends on what the purpose of the flying object is.
what is your “wrap” for the flying object? if, for example, your main purpose is to transport things, then your flying object will look different from an object whose main purpose is to fly very fast or carry weapons. this differentiation between targets explains the differences observed in nature between different flying objects. A bumblebee is not the same as a fast-flying bird such as a sea falcon or a peregrine falcon, because they have different objectives.
going on to the next book, cosmos by carl sagan. tell us a little about it.
This book was written almost 40 years ago by a famous astronomy professor Carl Sagan at Cornell University. he trained as a biologist and later worked as a professor of astronomy, a fact that permeates his story and makes for a very multidisciplinary book. this book is more about general science and philosophy, but it also sheds a lot of light on how one should approach engineering.
explains 14 billion years of evolution of the universe, a kind of engineering experiment on the largest possible scale. it encompasses all scales of space and time, describing everything from the largest scales of the universe to the smallest scales of molecules and atoms. It is a good book to put everything in perspective. talks about space travel and the evolution of the universe as a whole.
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It is also a very optimistic book. it shows how the human race will have to develop in the future and how we will have to go to different places.
Do you suggest that the engineers will be our salvation, that if we are going to survive as a species, the solution will come from them?
I don’t think he’s suggesting that, but he does say that engineering will definitely have to be part of our salvation. engineering must be part of it, because we will have to find ways to continue living on this planet. So if we want to conquer other planets or other worlds, we’ll need engineering to help us down that path.
but, as I said, this is a multidisciplinary book and also a very philosophical one. it doesn’t put engineering on some kind of pedestal at all. That’s why I think it’s useful to put things in perspective. engineering is important, but our future security cannot be left to engineering alone. sagan gives it the proper weight.
The next book is In Search of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World by Ian Stewart.
Like some of the others, this is also not your typical engineering book. It is written by a maths teacher from the UK and describes a series of mathematical advances, their consequences related to engineering and the practical application of mathematics in machines and other everyday uses. shows important equations without delving too deeply into their theoretical justification. Some classic examples are the Pythagorean theorem, logarithmic equations, differential calculus, Newton’s theory of gravity, Einstein’s relativity, etc. The book shows how these were 17 of the most important equations in history, and how mathematics has contributed to human progress. is a great introduction to the underlying principles of engineering.
can you give us an example of an equation specifically related to engineering?
for example, you have something called a wave equation. this particular equation can predict how a stringed instrument produces music. but it can also be used to predict the effect of an earthquake on buildings or other structures. it follows that it allows us to make buildings and bridges more resistant to these earthquakes. Interestingly, oil companies use the same equation to find oil a few miles underground. therefore, it shows how a relatively simple mathematical equation can have a variety of practical uses.
Another example from this book is the Black-Scholes equation, which is used by banks around the world to price financial derivatives, that is, for financial engineering. Interestingly, that particular chapter explains how mathematics can be misused, leading to global economic and social consequences.
You don’t need advanced math to enjoy this book. Professor Stewart does a good job of explaining the applied side of those equations without resorting to deep math.
let’s move on to the next book, power speed and form: engineers in the making of the 20th century by david p billington and david p billington, jr., presumably their son.
This is what I would call a typical engineering book. describes eight groundbreaking innovations from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. These eight innovations are the telephone, electricity, oil refining, the automobile, the plane, the radio, long-span bridges, and, finally, reinforced concrete.
those were the eight most important engineering inventions that made possible the world as we know it today. addresses the technical underpinnings of how we live today, explaining each of these innovations, how they came about, and why they happened. it also provides good technical and mathematical explanations, and shows how the models for these eight engineering innovations were built.
Between designing something and building it, there is a very important intermediate stage: modeling. Before you build a design, you need to make sure that it actually works. you do it with an experimental model. so build a model and put some loads on the model or try to use it as it will be used later in reality. Over the last 40 or 50 years, more and more of this type of modeling has been done through computer simulations. this book describes how 100 years ago they didn’t have computers, but used mostly theoretical models to show that a particular design would actually work. everything is very well explained in layman’s terms, anyone can understand it.
Do you talk about whether these innovations were driven by necessity or if they were inventions that led to big changes in the way we live? do you see them as a push or a pull?
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He sees them as a combination of both. necessity is a very good motivation to invent something new, or something better. But this book also emphasizes the profit motive, the economic incentives that drove these inventions, the idea that we do things not necessarily because they’re needed right now, but because they might make our lives more efficient and generate profit. economic. Thomas Edison famously said, “Anything that doesn’t sell, I don’t want to make it up.”
let’s move on to your latest book, ausgepowert: das ende des olzeitalters als chance de marcel hanggi. what does it mean?
this book is my choice of “dark horse”. It is a book written in German, but it is actually written by a Swiss journalist who is an expert in energy and ecology. translates as exploited: the end of the age of oil as opportunity. it’s really a book about how we’re using energy to power our lifestyles and what the end of cheap oil will mean. it also outlines the limits to growth, going beyond well-known constraints such as the finite level of world oil reserves, caps on co2 emissions, and population limits.
First of all, it’s a very sobering book. He is pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. this is the ultimate engineering book, although it is not a typical engineering book. This book should be read by all engineers, regardless of whether they are mechanical or civil engineers or involved in food production. a large part of this book deals with the energy used for transportation and food production. there are no maths or physical models, but it does establish a very important point of view about where we go from here. It brilliantly shows how dependent our society and way of life is on cheap energy.
“The environmental and energy problems we face today will not be solved with more efficient technology. simply changing normal light bulbs to energy efficient light bulbs won’t work.”
The book is pessimistic because it shows that the environmental and energy problems we face today will not be solved with more efficient technology. simply changing normal light bulbs to energy efficient light bulbs will not work. on the other hand, it is optimistic, because it shows that it is possible to live as well as today – or even better than today – with much lower energy consumption, and that it is not necessarily a bad thing that cheap energy runs out. and we are left with expensive energy in the future.
Expensive energy may force us to rethink how we use energy and how we employ the energy that is available for the production and transportation of food. It is an important fact that the book was written in Switzerland; This is not the first book by this author on the environment and energy. it is a very important subject in the country and, in fact, the Swiss state paid him to write it. the Swiss are a good example of how a rich and well-developed society should think about its future.
Can you give an example of the kind of thing you mean?
carries cheap food. In the global financial crisis of 2008, the price of some staple foods suddenly became very expensive in certain parts of the world. many people in poor countries faced hunger. this book shows that the source of the problem was not high food prices but rather volatile and sudden jumps in prices. Making food even cheaper won’t solve that problem because most of the affected people in Africa, Asia and South America were in food-producing economies. Increasingly cheaper food will only impoverish the people whose main source of income is food production.
Look at the United States, where human labor in food production is very limited. everything is automated and based on machines and technology. This practice is profitable because energy is cheap in the United States. In the developing world, on the other hand, energy is relatively expensive and therefore food production is still based on human input. therefore making food even cheaper in the united states and transferring that production technology to underdeveloped countries will not work: it would risk reducing the standard of living of people in those developing countries to lower levels than the ones they have today. that’s just one example of how technology isn’t necessarily the solution to all problems. the problem will be solved by changing the way we use technology and the amount of energy we use in things like transportation or food production, etc.
“The history of most new technologies suggests that each major technological innovation does not render the previous technology obsolete”
I think it can be best illustrated with a simple example. It is generally assumed that if we switch from gasoline cars to electric cars, it will be good for the environment and will solve a large part of our energy and environmental problems. this book shows that this is a false expectation, because the history of most new technologies suggests that each major technological innovation does not render the previous technology obsolete. all the technologies continue to exist and continue to consume almost the same amount of energy as before, but on a global level the new technologies simply exist on top of the old ones. so global energy consumption actually goes up and up all the time. that’s true for transportation and why electric cars are not a panacea.
So, last question. does it say anything about how engineers should start rethinking how they work, what are they trying to optimize to produce a low energy world? Or is this book about the limitations of engineering and engineers and, really, the solution lies with economists or sociologists or politicians?
If there is a solution, it belongs to everyone: from the social sciences, from the economists, from the engineers, from the scientists and, whether we like it or not, from the politicians. we will all have to change the way we live, and more expensive food does not necessarily mean that someone does not have enough food. is advocating a restructuring. it’s about creating a greater balance between people who have too much and people who don’t have enough. which will not be solved by the engineers. the social part of that question is probably more important.
Engineers can only help. that’s why i said that i think it’s a very important fact that this book was written in switzerland and was sponsored by the swiss government. if these ideas were presented by someone from eastern europe or from countries with a strong social component like germany, italy or france, they would immediately be called communists and socialists. i think switzerland doesn’t have that baggage from the past and maybe now they can get away with thinking more radically. This book has some very strong ideas and some very strong opinions, but I don’t think it’s biased.
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