The Essential Engineer
Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems
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The Essential Engineer
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Narrated by:
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Mark Deakins
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By:
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Henry Petroski
About this listen
From the acclaimed author of The Pencil and To Engineer Is Human, The Essential Engineer is an eye-opening exploration of the ways in which science and engineering must work together to address our world's most pressing issues, from dealing with climate change and the prevention of natural disasters to the development of efficient automobiles and the search for renewable energy sources.
While the scientist may identify problems, it falls to the engineer to solve them. It is the inherent practicality of engineering, which takes into account structural, economic, environmental, and other factors that science often does not consider, that makes engineering vital to answering our most urgent concerns.
Henry Petroski takes us inside the research, development, and debates surrounding the most critical challenges of our time, exploring the feasibility of biofuels, the progress of battery-operated cars, and the question of nuclear power. He gives us an in-depth investigation of the various options for renewable energy - among them solar, wind, tidal, and ethanol - explaining the benefits and risks of each. Will windmills soon populate our landscape the way they did in previous centuries? Will synthetic trees, said to be more efficient at absorbing harmful carbon dioxide than real trees, soon dot our prairies? Will we construct a sunshade in outer space to protect ourselves from dangerous rays? In many cases, the technology already exists. Whats needed is not so much invention as engineering.
Just as the great achievements of centuries past - the steamship, the airplane, the moon landin - once seemed beyond reach, the solutions to the 21st century's problems await only a similar coordination of science and engineering. Eloquently reasoned and written, The Essential Engineer identifies and illuminates these problems and, above all, sets out a course for putting ideas into action.
©2010 Henry Petroski (P)2010 Random HouseListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
What listeners say about The Essential Engineer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Richard
- 28-04-19
Lengthy and misleading
This book starts promisingly, and the initial chapters would make an interesting 30 minute podcast. However, these are stretched over two hours of repetitive prose.
From here the book goes downhill. The author appears to have sought to juxtapose a thought-provoking narrative from contradictory science articles in American newspapers.
Sadly the result is an uncritical repetition of junk science and articles from the oil and gas lobby, unworthy of the book's title. By summarising "another article" with no scientific or engineering acumen, he takes each article as carrying equal weight and forms an argument around climate change that is closer to Donald Trump's than the scientific consensus.
The uncritical reliance on American media leaves the listener wanting to punch the player, as the imprecise language and generalisation is complemented repeatedly by well known oil industry PR.
Every wind turbine emits more CO2 in construction than it saves in its life. Incorporating renewable power results in "massive" cost increases for consumers through subsidy (strangely subsidy of other power sources is overlooked).
Electric vehicles could never meet the requirements of the public, who need to drive 300 miles and recharge in 15 minutes.
Just a few of the many, in some cases painful, absence of fact checking throughout the book.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- alex
- 05-11-14
I AM AN ENGINEER! LOVE ME!
If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?
someone who is obsessed with the idea that engineers don't get respect
Would you ever listen to anything by Henry Petroski again?
maybe
Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Mark Deakins?
n.a
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Essential Engineer?
at least the first half.
Any additional comments?
this guy is completely obsessed with the idea that engineers don't get enough respect, and goes on and on about how sometimes engineers are called scientists and vice versa. it is un-listenable. i couldn't finish it, as he just talks for hours about this one completely uninteresting point.
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