tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119816335163312523.post5927828009414139196..comments2023-04-27T04:39:45.647-04:00Comments on JT Thinks About Stuff: Book Review: What If?JThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12170062950345779215noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119816335163312523.post-60201463125208634912015-01-10T14:48:38.017-05:002015-01-10T14:48:38.017-05:00Some engineers are more creative than others. I ha...Some engineers are more creative than others. I have colleagues whom I'd trust absolutely to implement a design for, say, a rocket car controller, but not to come up with the design in the first place. And vice-versa.<br /><br />Engineering creativity is almost always about solving some specific problem. (Granted, sometimes it's <a href="" rel="nofollow">a <b>big</b> problem.</a>) The problem might be something that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Copies-Seconds-Communication-Breakthrough-Gutenberg--Chester/dp/0743251180/" rel="nofollow">should exist but doesn't</a>, or something that doesn't work, or something that works but isn't elegant. But there's usually a fairly specific impetus.<br /><br />I experience artistic creativity somewhat differently. How about you?JThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12170062950345779215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119816335163312523.post-75976570835958669282015-01-10T04:15:00.230-05:002015-01-10T04:15:00.230-05:00Sounds like a lot of six sigma and kaizen folks I ...Sounds like a lot of six sigma and kaizen folks I know. But something seems missing in your description. Then again it's just a post and not a book. But most engineers have a lot of creativity. Maybe that's the speculation part of the what if?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119816335163312523.post-86701206959538233602015-01-09T10:45:09.393-05:002015-01-09T10:45:09.393-05:00That's actually a very cogent question. I'...That's actually a very cogent question. I'd break it down into several aspects.<br /><br />* Iterate. <i>What If</i> has some good examples. Randall Monroe starts with the first thing he can calculate. Then he adds another detail, or goes onto the next step. Repeat.<br />* Simplify, simplfy. Don't know everything? Approximate. Can't solve every edge case? Solve the core problem, and maybe the edge cases will take care of themselves. <i>What If?</i> shows this, too.<br />* Adaptive reuse. Engineering differs from science in that, to vastly over-generalize, it lacks large-scale theory. (I'm planning a long post on this at some point.) A physicist can take an equation, plug in numbers, and get an answer out. An engineer seldom has that luxury. We have guidelines, inductive reasoning, small-scale theories, paradigms, and past experience, but no facts-go-in/answers-come-out mechanism. We operate by cut-and-try: if <b>X</b> is a good general principle, and <b>Y</b> worked on this other, similar problem ... then maybe we can <b>X(Y)</b> and fix <b>Z</b>.JThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12170062950345779215noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119816335163312523.post-21075462532514774232015-01-09T07:59:20.638-05:002015-01-09T07:59:20.638-05:00So how exactly _do_ engineers think? Inquiring min...So how exactly _do_ engineers think? Inquiring minds want to know.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com