Flying a Kite
Aviation, and many other technological breakthroughs, owe as much to engineering as to science.
By Henry Petroski
A few weeks ago I found in my mail a sample copy of Science accompanied by a solicitation for my subscription to the magazine. As seems to be the manner in which these things are done, there were several enticements included in the package. The one that caught my eye was the free T-shirt.
As shown clearly on an insert, the front of the “collector’s edition” shirt bore a famous old drawing of what has been described as a glider with bat-like wings, which a recumbent aviator could flap through a system of ropes and pulleys. To ensure that the “professional in the field of Science, Engineering or Technology” to whom the mailing was directed did not mistake this for a harebrained scheme, beneath the drawing was the artist’s signature and below that his name spelled out fully: Leonardo da Vinci.
What really caught my eye, however, was what was printed on the back of the T-Shirt: “Aviation. Brought to you by science.” With a subscription to Science, the T-shirt was available in sizes up to X-Large; to me this slogan was a Triple-X-Large-Tall misrepresentation of the way things really come to be.
Every now and then since its inception, the National Science Foundation has defended its support of basic, undirected scientific research with the promise that it leads to engineering achievement and technology, but that linear model of research and development has been successfully challenged and disproven. Here in a mass mailing, Science magazine was reviving it on the back of a T-shirt. And with perhaps the worst example imaginable.
When the Wright Brothers sought to achieve manned flight, they did look to science for help in answering some fundamental questions. They wrote to the Smithsonian Institution asking for research papers on the subject, but received little that was helpful. Rather than give up, the bicycle mechanics and self-taught engineers designed and conducted their own experiments to gain insight into the shape of wings and propellers.
In other words, it was the brothers’ inventiveness and engineering design concepts that brought them to the point of knowing what kind of help they could use from the scientific method. It was definitely not science in the abstract that gave them the exact laws and formulas from which they could deduce the configuration of a successful airplane. Like Leonardo’s flying machine, their Wright Flyer existed as a sketch of a mechanical concept before there could be any application of science to its development.
It is important that the engineering curriculum—in which mathematics and science and engineering science courses have for so long preceded courses in design—convey to students the truth about the relative roles of science and engineering in the development of technology. Rarely if ever do real world examples follow the linear model. Rather, invention and technical problem solving are more often than not initiated through the challenges of design and proceed as collaborations among engineers, scientists, and technicians.
The truth of this is becoming increasingly obvious with the inclusion of hands-on design experiences in the first year of engineering curricula. Students who have not yet been indoctrinated by default into the myth that science precedes engineering realize how much engineering and design they can do – even without the seemingly essential and superior subjects.
It behooves us as engineering educators to drive home this point, not only to emphasize how much of engineering is independent of math and science but also to impress upon beginning engineering students that they are engaged in the study of a subject that is at least the equal of science and math.
Engineers above all should not be susceptible to such marketing myths as science brings us aviation, or rocketry, or any other technological achievement that in fact has its roots solidly in engineering.
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke. His most recent book is The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure.
Photo by Catherine Petroski