By EE Lewis, Prometheus Books, 2004. 328pp
What a refreshing
change, as they say. This is a book that oozes calm intelligence
and an ease of imparting knowledge that at once informs and
avoids patronising its audience.
‘Unlike scientists,’ he says, ‘who seek comprehension
of the natural universe, or the professions that strive to ameliorate
existing problems – restoring clients’ health or
adjudicating their conflicts – engineering strives to
create technology and to make it work.’ Lewis then embarks
on a journey through historical moments: from the Middle Age
wheelwrights of England and the monumental flying buttresses
of Chartres; to the steam engine and the flying machine. He
explores the fact that ‘geometry, by itself, was not very
helpful in attacking many of the problems faced by Renaissance
engineers’ and that it was the risks taken by ‘more
adventurous engineers’ that enabled high pressure steam
engines to ‘cut an engine’s dimensions, weight and
cost and made steam viable for powering ships and railroad locomotives.’
His chapter on aeroplanes almost convinced me of the logic of
how they stay in the air.
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Even though he over-eggs the separation of science and engineering
and puts the engineer or a bit of a pedestal (as he would as
professor at the McCormick School of Engineering, Illinois),
at least he celebrates human centred ingenuity and doesn’t
have a relativistic notion of ‘progress.’ Highly
readable.
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