Scanning the Bookshelf

Henry Petroski's newest book, "The Essential Engineer," is an aptly named multipurpose tool.

It is, first of all, a primer on what it means to be an engineer, to engage in the practice of engineering, an endeavor that Petroski earnestly notes is about much more than just building stuff. Second, and more importantly, "The Essential Engineer" is about how engineers are, well, essential.

The central premise of the book is that most people do not really understand what engineers do, and so, invariably, underappreciate their contributions to life and the world. Engineering is conflated with science. Worse, it's the job done after scientists have identified the problem. Engineers are seen as fix-it men who come in to do a job after scientists have done all of the hard thinking.

Of course, reality is neither that simple nor that obvious, and Petroski is perfectly positioned to explain why. A professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, Petroski may be the closest thing we have to a national engineer of civics, a public explainer of how things work and why it matters. His previous books have dealt with the nature of failure in successful design, the evolution of useful things and two wonderfully thoughtful and complex histories of the pencil and the toothpick.

In truth, there are many definitions of engineering. Theodore von Karman was a Hungarian-American engineer and physicist whose work in aerodynamics helped push the development of air and space travel, forward and fast. Von Karman is often credited with defining a scientist as someone who studies what is, while an engineer creates what never was.

It's a reasonable distinction, says Petroski, but incomplete. Albert Einstein is perhaps the archetypal scientist, a man whose work consisted greatly of gedanken experiments or thought experiments — mental exercises that produced and tested theories without any equipment but a brain.

Yet Einstein considered himself to be an engineer as well as a scientist. He believed that concepts weren't discovered, they were invented. Artifacts were simply concepts materialized.

Petroski makes this point repeatedly because it underpins his more critical message: Science alone will not solve humanity's problems. For that, you need an engineer. "Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst," he writes.

Not surprisingly, much of the book is spent presenting evidence to support this contention. The material is detailed; the pieces neatly fitted together. Petroski's reasoning is compelling and indisputable, and seemingly obvious, though most people probably haven't given it thought (which, of course, is why he wrote this book). A great chunk of text is spent examining one of the world's largest and most intractable issues: energy. Petroski writes comprehensively about how scientists doing basic research fabulously conceived and imagined the harnessing the power of wind, water and the atom, then left it to engineers to work out the details.

They are still working out the details.

But as much as "The Essential Engineer" is a paean to those who create what never was and keep it functioning, Petroski's larger goal is to reach out to science and urge a stronger union — or reunion — of the two enterprises. Now more than ever, he writes, the complex and confounding issues of the day demand that scientists and engineers combine and coordinate, that they work together like a well-oiled, well-designed machine. They have done so in the past, he says, creating inventions like the steamship, airplane and computer to fundamentally change and improve human lives. They must do so again. The world's problems are too great and pressing.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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