Cottleston Pie

Henry Petroski wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes today concerning the aftermath analysis of the Columbia accident, Failure Is Always an Option . I think his analysis is very much in line which what I've gathered about the general humility that engineering brings and which some other disciplines seem to lack. In the article, he describes how engineers are often seen as pessimists and managers as optimists. What is seen as pessimism by some, I have heard some people call realism, but I tend to call it humility and Petroski mentions that being humbled is how the conservatism appears to be born.

I've been observing a similar culture difference between electrical engineers and computer scientists for some time. In theoretical computer science, everything exists exactly as it is defined. Mastering the complexity is tough, but the problems and solutions are well defined and exist in a mathematical universe that does not spring surprises. Errors occur because people make mistakes. But error free design is an obtainable goal. Programmers also inhabit this universe (and often get computer science degrees). Unfortunately, something seems left out of that education which says that things will go wrong in practice because physical manifestation is a really hard problem that we don't know how to conquer--and at a certain point complex mathematical constructs seem to approximate the complexities that we see in the physical universe. We can only try and understand it as best we may and try and anticipate modes of failure and over-design as much as resources allow us to try and build something reliable. Petroski mentions how engineers can feel humbled by their lack of understanding and attempts to deal with it. Somehow, despite similar trips in the computer science universe, the same humbling does not occur in many people. I'm generalizing of course. Exceptions exist in all cases.

I read Petroski's book To Engineer Is Human some years ago (while in high school) and definitely thought it a good and useful read, repetitive, but worthwhile for all people to consider. Coincidentally, I attended the same university where he is a professor, so I emailed him some "fan mail" my freshman year. As I recall, he responded in some appropriate way that he appreciated my positive comments.

There's an excellent (not short) piece nominally about the current President of Harvard University, but I thought it captured a much more interesting discussion wherein the President simply stars as an excellent protagonist for the purpose of examining other topics. There's the abutment of between an academic rigor that has no need to bow to ego or couch results or observations in cushy, non-offensive language and the reality of life among humans who are easily offended. It could be called a discussion of "style versus substance" but is not about pitting them against each other as much as discovering how much style is appropriate to allow people to recognize the substance without closing their minds by offending or hiding the substance (assuming there is some) in so much fluff as to make it unrecognizable. I think this comes up at many people's job often. The article also touches on the topic of the place of Universities for doing meaningful public service as part of their mission, particularly research towards solving real problems. The Article

On a lighter note, there's a short article about how the movies have presented the afterlife, with a quick rundown of various cinematic portrayals. "Surprisingly, most afterlife movies seek to affirm the supreme and enduring power of love after the soul leaves the body — in sharp contrast to the real world, where love often can't survive a 10-minute walk around the block with the dog. " Myself, I think the Beetlejuice portrayal best, but maybe I'm overly swayed by the presence of Winona, who is unlikely to spend a whole lot of time standing on cotton balls and eating marshmallows. Speaking of substance versus fluff, this is pretty much all fluff. :-)
The Article