Why Engineers Are “Playing with Models”

Abstract

Before you began reading this book, you certainly did not doubt that mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology are different kinds of sciences. But I would not be surprised if you had doubts concerning the question of whether engineering itself is a science. Couldn’t it be that all the knowledge which is required for designing, producing and repairing technical products belongs either to the sciences mentioned above, or is a kind of “know-how” which lacks the characteristics of scientific findings? If technology really amounted to no more than many tricky applications of the findings presented in the previous chapters, I would have finished my manuscript at this point, because I already would have reached my goal. In the first chapter of this book, I said, “The purpose of this entire book is to provide the knowledge which leads the reader to believe that these products can be conceived and built.” If you are interested in the details of specific products, you still must ask a competent specialist. But he will enjoy giving you the necessary explanations only if he is not required to begin “at Adam and Eve,” i.e., if he need not first teach you all the fundamentals which are presented in this book. Now you should ask yourself whether or not there are technical products for which it is not obvious how the fundamental findings presented in the previous chapters could be used to conceive and build them.