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by: Henry Petroski List Price: $14.95 Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Dewey Decimal Number: 620.0042 EAN: 9780679734161 ISBN: 0679734163 Label: Vintage Manufacturer: Vintage Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 272 Publication Date: March 31, 1992 Publisher: Vintage Release Date: March 31, 1992 Sales Rank: 27843 Studio: Vintage Related Items:
Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: The moral of this book is that behind every great engineering success is a trail of often ignored (but frequently spectacular) engineering failures. Petroski covers many of the best known examples of well-intentioned but ultimately failed design in action -- the galloping Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which you've probably seen tossing cars willy-nilly in the famous black-and-white footage), the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways -- and many lesser known but equally informative examples. The line of reasoning Petroski develops in this book were later formalized into his quasi-Darwinian model of technological evolution in The Evolution of Useful Things, but this book is arguably the more illuminating -- and defintely the more enjoyable -- of these two titles. Highly recommended. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Being HumanTo Engineer is Human To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Designis a wonderful read, for all the reasons in other reviews posted here (and elsewhere I'm sure) and more. DISCLAIMER: I am not an engineer, nor do I play one on television or YouTube. I picked up this book because of its subtitle "the role of failure in successful design." What could I learn from another discipline's perspective on successes and failures in creating a product? I think if readers come at ... Read More Rating: - Very pleasedI was very impressed with the book and the speed in which I received it. It was exactly as promised and arrived much quicker than I expected. I would do business with this seller again and as always am grateful to Amazon for contracting with sellers this way. I like to buy used books and appreciate that you take care of all the financial end. I feel very secure buying this way. Thank you Rating: - Those who don't Learn from History are Doomed to Repeat It!I found the book absolutely fascinating, especially since I am a mechanical engineer by education and experience. To Engineer is Human covers some of the greatest engineering disasters in modern times such as the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkways collapse and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Henry Petroski explains the engineering disaster in great detail and then explores the causes and effects. He then explores how (if possible) the disaster ... Read More Rating:  - Nice collection of essaysThe title suggests a coherent essay on 'failure', but the actual content is a collection of essays loosely brought together by the theme 'engineering is about preventing failure'. Some chapters focus on the history of engineering, others on the nature of failure. If one essay bores you, just flip to the next chapter. The articles can be read in any order. All in all, a very thought provoking book. Rating:  - Tedious answer to a stupid questionThis book tries to answer the question of why the stuff built by engineers break, what a stupid quesion. Stuff breaks and stops working all the time, that's why we have quality control in factories. If someone thinks we can make something perfectly the first time and every time he must've been born yesterday or smoking. Think about the first plane built or the first car, the first train, the first computer, MP3 players that stops working in a week, umbrellas that flip in the wind... Maybe people don't ... Read More |
