Flexible Rigor
Case studies celebrate a creative yet exacting profession.
Applied Minds: How Engineers Think
By Guru Madhavan
W.W. Norton & Company. 2015, 288 pages.
Depictions of introverted, socially inept mechanics may still exist to malign the engineering profession — but not for long, if Guru Madhavan has his way. A biomedical engineer, senior program officer at the National Academy of Sciences, and vice president of IEEE-USA, Madhavan helps debunk such stereotypes. His book offers an unabashed celebration of engineers and their plug-and-play thinking tool kit. These are people engaged in a profession “with profound consequences,” who are “deliberate, disciplined, open-minded, yet grounded in reality.”
Peppered throughout the pages of this text are examples of engineering creativity, ingenuity, and determination, from the invention of the bar code to the modern cannon, cell phone GPS tracking, and the easy-flow plastic ketchup bottle. Madhavan is not simply touting success. Instead, he seeks to identify core mental capabilities that characterize the profession. Most notably, these include the ability to locate underlying structures of a project, to recognize and accommodate constraints, and to balance the necessary trade-offs. As the author notes, engineers must work “at the intersection of feasibility, viability, and desirability.”
Offered with engaging flair, each case study emphasizes the importance of structures, constraints, and trade-offs. In Chapter Three, seemingly disparate discussions of mechanization at Piggly Wiggly stores, the function-based design of ATMs, and responsive supply methods at Toyota converge to demonstrate systematic design undertaken for efficiency and reliability. In Chapter Five, one engineer’s lifelong struggles to clean India’s Ganges River are placed alongside Sanford Fleming’s late 19th-century steps to establish standardized time zones and the 2012 Olympic committee’s efforts to prepare London for the summer games. All illustrate the chapter’s theme, “Solutions under Constraints.”
The opening chapters focus on flexible yet rigorous engineering mentalities. Hugh DeHaven devised the three-point seat belt, for example, after merging a study of human injuries sustained in suicide attempts with an analysis of commercial packaging. In each case, Madhavan reveals how constraints and inevitable trade-offs extend beyond technical considerations: Politics, religion, and human preference can often confound creators’ expectations. Fleming’s precise, logical formulations for standardized time offered considerable advantages over a mass of poorly aligned time systems; yet he had to labor to persuade mistrustful critics, including those who labeled him a communist. Many scientists and engineers zero in on the technical, but real-life constraints are inevitable, and effective response is crucial. Chapter Six, “Crossing Over and Adapting” highlights this point with the story of industrial engineer David Koon. His technical prowess with GPS technology and the personal anguish he faced following his 18-year-old daughter’s 1993 murder did little to aid Koon’s campaign to introduce improved 911 safety measures. Success came only after he immersed himself in the strategies of policymakers and learned to negotiate the labyrinthine requirements of legislation. Eventually, Koon pursued advocacy full time, leaving his position at Bausch & Lomb to run for the New York State Assembly.
Today, as ever, scientists and engineers need to engage actively with social problems. “The soft stuff is actually the hard stuff,” the author writes, quoting former U.S. Navy Secretary and General Dynamics president Gordon England, a trained electrical engineer. Like many of his colleagues, Madhavan also argues that engineers can enhance their work through engagement with the arts, literature, humanities, sciences, and philosophy. Becoming more attuned to subtleties of human behavior can “boost our economies and serve our society” and encourage “an energetic type of pluralism.”
Applied Minds is worth sharing with young engineering students. As Madhavan notes, engineering may be omnipresent, but it remains largely invisible to the general population, discussed primarily at points of failure, like airplane crashes and bridge collapses. This book helps support greater visibility and appreciation through anecdotes that will fascinate, amuse, and inspire. Each case study represents the ingenuity of engineers and the hard work that contributes to the creation of our world. Moreover, the text helps aspiring engineers value the rigorous thinking processes that characterize their profession. The engineering mind-set, Madhavan declares, can offer “an enduring cognitive archetype and durable practical construct for life.”
Review by Robin Tatu
Robin Tatu is Prism’s senior editorial consultant.