Engineering by discipline

"Software engineering is the establishment and use of sound engineering principles in order to obtain economically software that is reliable and works efficiently on real machines."

"Software engineering is the part of computer science which is too difficult for the computer scientist."

"Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later."

"Software Engineering Economics is an invaluable guide to determining software costs, applying the fundamental concepts of microeconomics to software engineering, and utilizing economic analysis in software engineering decision making."

"Software engineering is an engineering discipline that is concerned with all aspects of software production from the early stages of system specification to maintaining the system after it has gone into use. In this definition, there are two key phrases:"

"# Engineering discipline Engineers make things work. They apply theories, methods and tools where these are appropriate... Engineers also recognise that they must work to organisational and financial constraints."

"# All aspects of software production Software engineering is not just concerned with the technical processes of software development but also with activities such as software project management and with the development of tools, methods and theories to support software production."

"Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer."

"Applications programming is a race between software engineers, who strive to produce idiot-proof programs, and the universe which strives to produce bigger idiots. So far the Universe is winning."

"[Software engineering is] the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software."

"As more and more good ideas come under the protection of patents, it may become increasingly unlikely that any one program can incorporate the state of the art in user-interface design without sinking into a quagmire of unending royalty payments and legal battles."

"The business of software building isn't really high-tech at all. It's most of all a business of talking to each other and writing things down. Those who were making major contributions to the field were more likely to be its best communicators than its best technicians."

"The required techniques of effective reasoning are pretty formal, but as long as programming is done by people that don't master them, the software crisis will remain with us and will be considered an incurable disease. And you know what incurable diseases do: they invite the quacks and charlatans in, who in this case take the form of Software Engineering gurus."

"In all engineering disciplines nowadays, software engineering excluded, there exists an established engineering process to develop a system, which is accompanied by a number of suited modeling description techniques. Software engineering, being a rather new field, has not as yet established any clear methodical guidance or a fully standardized modeling notation."

"The entire history of software engineering is that of the rise in levels of abstraction. Executable UML is the next logical, and perhaps inevitable, evolutionary step in the ever-rising level of abstraction at which programmers express software solutions. Rather than elaborate an analysis product into a design product and then write code, application developers of the future will use tools to translate abstract application constructs into executable entities. Someday soon, the idea of writing an application in Java or C++ will seem as absurd as writing an application in assembler does today. And the code generated from an Executable UML model will be as uninteresting and typically unexamined as the assembler pass of a third generation language compile is today."

"Computing spread out much, much faster than educating unsophisticated people can happen. In the last 25 years or so, we actually got something like a pop culture, similar to what happened when television came on the scene and some of its inventors thought it would be a way of getting Shakespeare to the masses. But they forgot that you have to be more sophisticated and have more perspective to understand Shakespeare. What television was able to do was to capture people as they were. So I think the lack of a real computer science today, and the lack of real software engineering today, is partly due to this pop culture."

"Some people have called the book [The Mythical Man-Month, 1975] the "bible of software engineering". I would agree with that in one respect: that is, everybody quotes it, some people read it, and a few people go by it."

"The amateur software engineer is always in search of magic, some sensational method or tool whose application promises to render software development trivial. It is the mark of the professional software engineer to know that no such panacea exist."

"You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes."

""Legacy code" is a term often used derogatorily to characterize code that is written in a language or style that (1) the speaker/writer consider outdated and/or (2) is competing with something sold/promoted by the speaker/writer. "Legacy code" often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling."

"Software engineering concerns methods and techniques to develop large software systems. The engineering metaphor is used to emphasize a systematic approach to develop systems that satisfy organizational requirements and constraints."

"Far too often, "software engineering" is neither engineering nor about software."

"One of the difficulties in thinking about software is its huge variety. A function definition in a spreadsheet cell is software. A smartphone app is software. The flight management system for an Airbus A380 is software. A word processor is software. We shouldn't expect a single discipline of software engineering to cover all of these, any more than we expect a single discipline of manufacturing to cover everything from the Airbus A380 to the production of chocolate bars, or a single discipline of social organization to cover everything from the United Nations to a kindergarten. Improvement in software engineering must come bottom-up, from intense specialized attention to particular products."

"After forty years of currency the phrase "software engineering" still denotes no more then a vague and largely unfulfilled aspiration."

"The design of this memoir is to deduce strictly from a few principles, obtained chiefly by experiment, the rationale of those electrical phenomena which are produced by the mutual contact of two or more bodies, and which have been termed galvanic; its aim is attained if by means of it the variety of facts be presented as unity to the mind."

"ALL THIS IS A DREAM. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these experiment is the best test of such consistency."

"We shall see that the mathematical treatment of the subject [of electricity] has been greatly developed by writers who express themselves in terms of the 'Two Fluids' theory. Their results, however, have been deduced entirely from data which can be proved by experiment, and which must therefore be true, whether we adopt the theory of two fluids or not. The experimental verification of the mathematical results therefore is no evidence for or against the peculiar doctrines of this theory."

"Telegraph engineering or electrical engineering is a new profession. More than this, it is one which is not yet overcrowded, and it is, therefore, undoubtedly an occupation which many of our college graduates will adopt."

"Electrical engineering is becoming greatly in demand in colliery districts, and we have pleasure in noting the establishment of the new firm."

"It has been suggested that because the able mechanical engineers who have taken up the subject of construction are mainly to be credited with the advances which have been made in electrical lightning, therefor electrical engineering per se is to be a thing of the past. For the further, those who would be electrical engineers must first be mechanical engineers, and then somehow obtain a smattering of electrical knowledge, and all will be will with them... With this view the writer proposes to join issues... The electrical engineer of the future... if he is to properly represent his chosen profession, will be required to know everything about electricity, and much more about everything else. As with other branches of engineering and of applied science, electrical engineering comes in contact with and requires help from many other branches. The electrical engineer cannot go far for instance, without some knowledge of mathematics, of chemistry, as well as of mechanics."

"During all those years of experimentation and research, I never once made a discovery. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention, pure and simple. I would construct a theory and work on its lines until I found it was untenable. Then it would be discarded at once and another theory evolved. This was the only possible way for me to work out the problem... I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament... Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon."

"A point of great importance would be first to know: what is the capacity of the earth? And what charge does it contain if electrified? Though we have no positive evidence of a charged body existing in space without other oppositely electrified bodies being near, there is a fair probability that the earth is such a body, for by whatever process it was separated from other bodies — and this is the accepted view of its origin — it must have retained a charge, as occurs in all processes of mechanical separation."

"In my work I now have the comfortable feeling that I am so to speak on my own ground and territory and almost certainly not competing in an anxious race and that I shall not suddenly read in the literature that someone else had done it all long ago. It is really at this point that the pleasure of research begins. when one is. so to speak, alone with nature and no longer worries about human opinions, views and demands. To put it in a way that is more learned than clear: the philological aspect drops out and only the philosophical remains."

"It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world! … Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle."

"Scientific theories need reconstruction every now and then. If they didn't need reconstruction they would be facts, not theories."

"I was originally supposed to become an [Electrical] engineer but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me."

"I am overwhelmed by an irresistible temptation to do my climb by moonlight and unroped. This is contrary to all my rock climbing teaching & does not mean poor training, but only a strong-headedness."

"It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes [nuclear generated] electrical energy too cheap to meter."

"Computer science is neither mathematics nor electrical engineering."

"Science is a field which grows continuously with ever expanding frontiers. Further, it is truly international in scope. Any particular advance has been preceded by the contributions of those from many lands who have set firm foundations for further developments. The Nobel awards should be regarded as giving recognition to this general scientific progress as well as to the individuals involved. Further, science is a collaborative effort. The combined results of several people working together is often much more effective than could be that of an individual scientist working alone."

"Innovation is everything. When you're on the forefront, you can see what the next innovation needs to be. When you're behind, you have to spend your energy catching up."

"Electrical Engineering is the largest branch of engineering, representing about 30 percent of the university's graduates entering the engineering market"

"Ultimately, progress in applications is not deterministic, but opportunistic, exploiting for new applications whatever new science and technology happen to be coming along."

"I've reached the age where young people frequently ask for my advice. All I can really say is that electronics is a fascinating field that I continue to find fulfilling. The field is still growing rapidly, and the opportunities that are ahead are at least as great as they were when I graduated from college. My advice is to get involved and get started."

"The belief in a certain idea gives to the researcher the support for his work. Without this belief he would be lost in a sea of doubts and insufficiently verified proofs."

"The biggest challenge [for solar power] is escaping from the economic effects of vendor lock-in where large investments in nuclear and traditional energy sources keep us 'locked-in' to feeding monsters that will bring us down an economic black hole. It's rather like the play The Little Shop of Horrors where a man-eating plant is initially fed small amounts, but then its voracious appetite sends it into a downward spiral swallowing up anyone that gets in its way."

"Computers are no more able to create information than iPods are capable of creating music."

"In the early 1800s galvanometers could be constructed with the fine gauges of silk-covered copper or silver wires produced for decorative purposes, but when Faraday was making his classic electrical experiments in 1831 he needed a sturdier gauge of copper wire. Bare copper wire was available in many diameters for mechanical applications, but coils for electromagnetic investigations had to be insulated with string and calico. It was soon realized that the cotton-covered springy iron wire then used to hold out the brims of ladies' bonnets showed how copper wire might be similarly wrapped to provide a flexible insulation."

"With the increasing use of electronic devices for the navigation and control of aircraft, A.R. C. has long encouraged the “Systems Engineering” of these devices into the basic design of aircraft."

"Radio atmospherics is one of numerous projects underway at the US Navy Electronics Laboratory, which has its headquarters in San Diego... The laboratory is operated by the Bureau of Ships and is engaged not only in research but also in development and "systems engineering" by which new ideas are converted into practical pieces of equipment for use by the fleet."

"Today at Martin an entirely new concept, known as Martin Systems Engineering, is resulting in the production of new aircraft, guided missiles and electronics weapons designed not as yesterday's flying vehicles but as the coordinated and controlled spaceborne systems of tomorrow. The principle of Martin Systems Engineering now makes possible developments in airpower that may change the shape of things to come-our way."

"This man could almost reach the moon tonight... for he stands at the brink of a new age in the conquest of space... an entirely new development in aircraft industry now makes this possible. It is known as Systems Engineering... a science and a method of developing aircraft, guided missiles and electronic systems not as traditional flying vehicles but as fully coordinated solutions to operations problems..."

"The term "systems engineering" is a term with an air of romance and of mystery. The romance and the mystery come from its use in the field of guided missiles, rockets, artificial satellites, and space flight. Much of the work being done in these areas is classified and hence much of it is not known to the general public or to this writer. But one term that has defied classification limits is the term "systems engineering." One sees the term "systems engineering" in technical help-wanted advertisements in newspapers and magazines. For example, the New York Times advertisements have often mentioned it, and it is far from rare in the advertising carried by the magazine Scientific American. The term is also found among the course offerings of a few leading universities."

"From a business point of view, systems engineering is the creation of a deliberate combination of human services, material services, and machine service to accomplish an information processing job. But this is also very nearly a definition of business system analysis. The difference, from a business point of view, therefore, between business system analysis and systems engineering is only one of degree. In general, systems engineering is more total and more goal-oriented in its approach..."

"Systems engineering is more likely to be closely associated with top management of an enterprise than the engineering of the components of the system. If an engineering task is large and complex enough, the arrangement-making problem is especially difficult. Commonly, in a large job, the first and foremost problem for the systems engineers is to relate the objectives to the technical art."

"Systems engineering is a highly technical pursuit and if a nontechnical man attempts to direct the systems engineering as such, it must end up in a waste of technical talent below."

"By some definitions "systems engineering" is suggested to be a new discovery. Actually it is a common engineering approach which has taken on a new and important meaning because of the greater complexity and scope of problems to be solved in industry, business, and the military. Newly discovered scientific phenomena, new machines and equipment, greater speed of communications, increased production capacity, the demand for control over ever-extending areas under constantly changing conditions, and the resultant complex interactions, all have created a tremendously accelerating need for improved systems engineering. Systems engineering can be complex, but is simply defined as "logical engineering within physical, economic and technical limits" — bridging the gap from fundamental laws to a practical operating system."

"Systems engineering embraces every scientific and technical concept known, including economics, management, operations, maintenance, etc. It is the job of integrating an entire problem or problem to arrive at one overall answer, and the breaking down of this answer into defined units which are selected to function compatibly to achieve the specified objectives. The problem can be practically anything - designing a missile, building a plant, replanning an existing process, developing a new instrument, or establishing a maintenance procedure. Instrument and control engineering is but one aspect of systems engineering - a vitally important and highly publicized aspect, because the ability to create automatic controls within overall systems has made it possible to achieve objectives never before attainable, While automatic controls are vital to systems which are to be controlled, every aspect of a system is essential. Systems engineering is unbiased, it demands only what is logically required. Control engineers have been the leaders in pulling together a systems approach in the various technologies."

"A new concept and a new method were needed. The concept from the engineering standpoint is the evolution of the engineering scientist, i.e., the scientific generalist who maintains a broad outlook. The method is that of the team approach. On large-scale-system problems, teams of scientists and engineers, generalists as well as specialists, exert their joint efforts to find a solution and physically realize it. We are led to the concept of the system-design team, a small group of engineers or scientists, to lead a large project and organize the system effort. Such men have been variously called engineering scientists, system engineers, system analysts, or large-scale-system designers. The technique has been variously called the systems approach or the team development method. It is toward this man and his teammates that these discussions are directed. With the realization that not enough can be learned in all the required fields to make him a specialist, enough is introduced to make him aware of the language and problems of the specialist. This generalist is a new quantity in the engineering world, and his education must be begun."

"Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go — and he'll do plenty well when he gets there."

"There are two types of systems engineering - basis and applied. There is no need to attempt to define the term systems engineering in a manner acceptable to everybody, as Chalmer Jones brings out in his article herein. Systems engineering is, obviously, the engineering of a system. It usually, but not always, includes dynamic analysis, mathematical models, simulation, linear programming, data logging, computing, optimating, etc., etc. It connotes an optimum method, realized by modern engineering techniques. Basic systems engineering includes not only the control system but also all equipments within the system, including all host equipments for the control system. Applications engineering is — and always has been — all the engineering required to apply the hardware of a hardware manufacturer to the needs of the customer. Such applications engineering may include, and always has included where needed, dynamic analysis, mathematical models, simulation, linear programming, data logging, computing, and any technique needed to meet the end purpose - the fitting of an existing line of production hardware to a customer's needs. This is applied systems engineering."

"Systems engineering is the name given to engineering activity which considers the overall behavior of a system, or more generally which considers all factors bearing on a problem, and the systems approach to control engineering problems is correspondingly that approach which examines the total dynamic behavior of an integrated system. It is concerned more with quality of performance than with sizes, capacities, or efficiencies, although in the most general sense systems engineering is concerned with overall, comprehensive appraisal."

"SYSTEMS ENGINEERS are required for interesting work on the study of overall weapons systems (1) for simulator work associated with theoretical systems studies: (2) for work in a systems engineering laboratory containing a large Analogue Computer. Candidates for the first category should have a degree in Mathematics or Physics, and some years' experience on the simulation of guidance control systems. Candidates for the second category should have a minimum of H.N.C., and considerable experience of some of the following subjects is essential : Electro mechanical devices, D.C. amplifiers, pulse and video circuitry, general electronic techniques, precision electrical measuring techniques and relay circuitry."

"Systems engineering is a realistic way of doing engineering. It is not a mythical, blue-sky concept. It is now being used with benefits and influences that can be seen. It offers management a means to potential profit that cannot be ignored."

"The Systems Engineering method recognizes each system is an integrated whole even though composed of devices, specialized structures and sub-functions. It is further recognized that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between them may differ widely from system to system. The methods seek to optimize the overall system function according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum capability of its parts."

"It may be said that systems engineering is directed at the design and operating problems of production processes and units, while operations research is applied to problems in other areas of management such as sales, marketing, and external finance."

"Some engineering artifacts are most easily analysed, described, or designed as an assembly of simpler parts. Artifacts of this kind are called systems. Some systems have the property that flowing through them are streams of some 'working fluid' (which may be matter, energy, or information), in such a way that the 'working fluid' passes in turn through many parts of the system, which is in consequence termed a sequential (or flow) system. Examples are a chemical plant, an electrical power distribution network, a digital computer, a sewer system. Systems which do not have this property are termed associative systems of which examples are a motor car, an aircraft, or a bridge - - it is with (sequential) systems that the theory of has primarily been developed."

"There is a general feeling at the present time that a worth-while new subject must lie behind the structure and functioning of a large class of complex devices and organism, typified by animal nervous systems and computers... [The 1962 book The Design of Engineering Systems by William Gosling] is part of a search for such subject. [It] tries to establish a strictly practical subject, to guide engineers in designing complicated systems... Gosling touches upon many aspects of the design processes that are common to a range of engineering projects, and so produces a useful reference book for the engineer who wishes to acquaint himself with the methods used by some of his colleagues. One is left, however, with the impression that it is still a collection of logically unconnected techniques. Merely to impose a common terminology may be useful, but it does not raire "systems engineering" to the level of a new subject. Even the terminology is a little forced: we may accept "throughput" in cases where the meaning of "input" and "output" have become fused, but must we then refer to output as "ongoing throughput"?"

"It is hard to say whether increasing complexity is the cause or the effect of man's effort to cope with his expanding environment. In either case a central feature of the trend has been the development of large and very complex systems which tie together modern society. These systems include abstract or non-physical systems, such as government and the economic system. They also include large physical systems like pipe line and power distribution systems, transportation and electrical communication systems. The growth of these systems has increased the need not only for over-all planning, but also for long-range development of the systems. This need has induced increased interest in the methods by which efficient planning and design can be accomplished in complex situations where no one scientific discipline can account for all the factors. Two similar disciplines which emerged about the time of World War II to cope with these problems are called systems engineering and operations research."

"A system must be designed and tested as a complete entity. The word 'system' has come, through actual practice, to include: the prime mission equipment; its supporting command, control, training, checkout, test, and maintenance equipment; the facilities required to operate and maintain the system; the selection and training of personnel specialists; the operational and maintenance procedures; instrumentation and data reduction for test and evaluation; special aviation and acceptance programs and logistics support programs for spare and depot maintenance. All parts of a system must have a common unified purpose: to contribute to the production of a single set of optimum outputs from given inputs with respect to time, cost, and performance measures of effectiveness. The absolute necessity for coherence requires an organization of creative technology which lead to the successful design of the complex military system. This organized creative technology is called Systems Engineering."

"The systems engineering method recognizes each system is an integrated whole even though composed of diverse, specialized structures and sub-functions. It further recognizes that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between them may differ widely from system to system. The methods seek to optimize the overall system functions according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum compatibility of its parts."

"In a world in which training and functions of individuals and groups are growing more and more specialized the number of ways to accomplish any particular result increasing. Different design, different facilities, different equipment, different methods, and different organizational means are available to meet the needs of man. It is highly desirable that we have trained persons look at these varied possibilities to compare their effectiveness, and to point the way to sound engineering decisions. Systems Engineering Methods is directed towards the development of a broad systems engineering approach to help such people improve their decision-making capability. Although the emphasis is on engineering, the systems approach can also has validity for many other areas in which emphasis may be social, economic, or political."

"Systems thinking plays a dominant role in a wide range of fields from industrial enterprise and armaments to esoteric topics of pure science. Innumerable publications, conferences, symposia and courses are devoted to it. Professions and jobs have appeared in recent years which, unknown a short while ago, go under names such as systems design, systems analysis, systems engineering and others."

"Systems Engineering is the science of designing complex systems in their totality to ensure that the component sub-systems making up the system are designed, fitted together, checked and operated in the most efficient way."

"My analysis of living systems uses concepts of thermodynamics, information theory, cybernetics, and systems engineering, as well as the classical concepts appropriate to each level. The purpose is to produce a description of living structure and process in terms of input and output, flows through systems, steady states, and feedbacks, which will clarify and unify the facts of life."

"Chestnut (1965) devotes one page of the more than 600 pages in his book to man as an operator or an element of man-machine systems. Hall (1962) devotes about a page and a half to human factors applications. Machol (1965) has a brief chapter of limited content on human factors, in which man is considered only as an information processor. Shearer et al. (1967) mention a driver and a steersman in their introductory chapter; thereafter, there is no of man, his characteristics, or his behavior. Wilson (1965) allocates three pages to human factors. For every book on systems engineering containing a mention of the human operator, there is another in which the words human, man, human factors, and psychology do not appear."

"The notion of "system" has gained central importance in contemporary science, society and life. In many fields of endeavor, the necessity of a "systems approach" or "systems thinking" is emphasized, new professions called "systems engineering," "systems analysis" and the like have come into being, and there can be little doubt that this this concept marks a genuine, necessary, and consequential development in science and world-view."

"Management of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly; that may be the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers."

"Significant formal investigators of systems engineering have included Goode and Machol (1957), A.D. Hall (1962), Chestnut (1965, 1967), Sage (1977a,b), and Blanchard and Fabrycky (1981), whose descriptions span 24 years. Although each investigator has approached this subject with a slightly different orientation, all have dealt with defining the elements of systems engineering and various methods of approaching the implementation of these elements. In addition, the US government, through its development and acquisition of large-scale systems over the years, has addressed all aspects of systems engineering. These have been documented in government- sponsored texts (e.g.. System Engineering Management Guide 1986) as well as numerous related standards, directives and handbooks, especially those printed by the US Department of Defense."

"A.D. Hall's (1962) classic account of the methodology was based on his experience with the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Hall sees systems as existing in hierarchies. In systems engineering, plans to achieve a general objective must similarly be arranged in a hierarchy, with the systems engineer ensuring the internal consistency and integration of the plans, The methodology itself ensures the optimization of the system of concern with respect to its objectives. This requires a number of steps, the most important being problem definition, choosing objectives, systems synthesis, systems analysis, systems selection, system development, and current engineering. With Hall, the system of concern is usually a physical entity."

"System engineering is the art and science of creating effective systems, using whole system, whole life principles."

"System engineering is a robust approach to the design, creation, and operation of systems. In simple terms, the approach consists of identification and quantification of system goals, creation of alternative system design concepts, performance of design trades, selection and implementation of the best design, verification that the design is properly built and integrated, and post-implementation assessment of how well the system meets (or met) the goals."

"Before the 1940s the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement... With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics, the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications -- systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on."

"Systems engineering is the key technology to manage this complexity"

"Rocket engineering is not like ditch digging. With ditch digging you can get 100 people and dig a ditch, and you will dig it a hundred times as faster if you get 100 people versus one. With rockets, you have to solve the problem of a particular level of difficulty; one person who can solve the problem is worth an infinite number of people who can’t."

"Among the first texts to use the term [Systems engineering] was ’s Radar System Engineering, published in 1947 as part of the Radiation Laboratory’s series of textbooks. The title refers to the physiological sense of system, that is “how to engineer a radar system,” – where an individual radar is a connected set of components like magnetrons, waveguides, power supplies, and display tubes. Title does not refer to the philosophical sense of system, as in “how to system engineer a radar,” but such ideas are nascent in the book: it covers not only wave propagation and noise models, but also the appropriate design of displays and the dissemination of information through a radar organization. Ridenour’s text includes no discussion of feedback or servomechanisms, or of the dynamic characteristics of radar systems. A McGraw Hill text, System Engineering [by , and Robert E. Machol, published ten years later, included probability, analog and digital computers for simulation, queuing theory, game theory, information theory, servomechanism theory, and sections on “human engineering,” management, and economics."

"Complex engineering projects should be managed as evolutionary processes that undergo continuous rapid improvement through iterative incremental changes performed in parallel and thus is linked to diverse small subsystems of various sizes and relationships. Constraints and dependencies increase complexity and should be imposed only when necessary. This context must establish necessary security for task performance and for the system that is performing the tasks. In the evolutionary context, people and technology are agents that are involved in design, implementation and function. Management’s basic oversight (meta) tasks are to create a context and design the process of innovation, and to shorten the natural feedback loops through extended measures of performance."

"The motives for conceiving modern systems engineering are to be found, at least in part, in past disasters. Arthur D. Hall III [1989] cites: the chemical plant leakage in Bhopal (1986); the explosion of the NASA Challenger space shuttle (1986) and the Apollo fire (1967); the sinking of the Titanic (1912); the nuclear explosion in Chernobyl (1986) and the disaster at Three Mile Island power plant (1979). He cites, too, the capture of markets by Japan from the U.S., the decline in US productivity and the failure of the US secondary school system. He identifies the millions of people dying of starvation every year while other nations stockpile surplus food, medical disasters such as heart disease, while governments subsidize grains used to produce high cholesterol meat, milk and eggs; and many more. One implication is clear: systems engineering faces challenges well beyond the sphere of engineering."

"[In the year 1957] I have just returned from an exciting meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education where I heard a paper on the new discipline of systems engineering. It is no longer sufficient for engineers merely to design boxes such as computers with the expectation that they would become components of larger, more complex systems. That is wasteful because frequently the box component is a bad fit in the system and has to be redesigned or worse, can lead to system failure. We must learn how to design large-scale, complex systems from the top down so that the specification for each component is derivable from the requirements for the overall system. We must also take a much larger view of systems. We must design the man-machine interfaces and even the system-society interfaces. Systems engineers must be trained for the design of large-scale, complex, man-machine-social systems"

"System engineering is the art and science of creating optimal solution systems to complex issues and problems."

"Systems engineering as an approach and methodology grew in response to the increase size and complexity of systems and projects... This engineering approach to the management of complexity by modularization was re-deployed in the software engineering discipline in the 1960s and 1970s with a proliferation of structured methodologies that enabled the analysis, design and development of information systems by using techniques for modularized description, design and development of system components. Yourdon and DeMarco's Structured Analysis and Design, SSADM, James Martin's Information Engineering, and Jackson's Structured Design and Programming are examples from this era. They all exploited modularization to enable the parallel development of data, process, functionality and performance components of large software systems. The development of object orientation in the 1990s exploited modularization to develop reusable software. The idea was to develop modules that could be mixed and matched like Lego bricks to deliver to a variety of whole system specifications. The modularization and reusability principles have stood the test of time and are at the heart of modern software development."

"Systems engineering should be, first and foremost, a state of mind and an attitude taken when dealing with complexity."

"Theatrum Machinarum Generale: Schauplatz des Grundes Mechanischer Wissenschaften"

"Explaining and Demonstrating the General Laws of Motion, the Laws of Gravity, Motion of Descending Bodies, Projectiles, Mechanic Powers, Pendulums, Centers of Gravity, &c. Strength and Stress of Timber, Hydrostatics, and Construction of Machines. A Work Very Necessary to be Known, by All Gentlemen and Others, that Desire to Have an Insight Into the Works of Nature and Art. And Extremely Useful to All Sorts of Artificers; Particularly to Architects, Engineers, Shipwrights, Millwrights, Watchmakers, &c, Or Any that Work in a Mechanical Way."

"To the art of mechanics is owing all sorts of instruments to work with, all engines of war, ships, bridges, mills, curious roofs and arches, stately theatres, columns, pendent galleries, and all other grand works in building. Also clocks, watches, jacks, chariots, carts and carriages, and even the wheel-barrow. Architecture, navigation, husbandry, and military affairs, owe their invention and use to this art."

"THEORY and practice principally distinguish science from arts, and accordingly most branches of knowledge pass under one or the other of these denominations; tho we must allow, that our ideas in this respect are not always sufficiently precise; for we are often at a loss in naming the branches of knowledge where speculation is joined with practice. There are rules for the operations of the mind, and others for those of the body; the latter being confined to external subjects, require no more than the assistance of the hand to perform them. Hence proceeds the distinction between the liberal and mechanic arts, and the preference given to the former, tho very unjustly in many respects. The mechanic arts depending upon manual operation, and confined to a certain beaten track, are assigned over to those whom prejudice places in a lower class: and necessity rather than taste and genius, compelling them to the exercise of these arts, the arts themselves in time became subject to contempt; whilst the free operations of the mind were claimed by others, who, because they were more exempt from indigence, possibly thought themselves more favoured by nature. But this assumed superiority of the liberal over the mechanic arts, from the former's employing only the attention of the mind, and from the difficulty of excelling therein, is sufficiently counter-balanced by the greater utility commonly arising from the latter."

"The work before us is a proof that the doctrine of mechanics is of the utmost importance to mankind in general, and to civil society in particular, which could hardly subsist without it. The author of this work is Mr. W. Emerson who is well known in the literary world, from several ingenious writings with which he has obliged the public; some of which have passed under our consideration since the commencement of the Review. In this treatise Mr. Emerson has laid down the fundamental principles both of theory and practice, and demonstrated most of them from the common elementary geometry, and the rest from the common rules of algebra; which is certainly the best method of rendering a treatise of this kind useful to the generality of readers, the fluxionary calculus being too difficult for them to understand. The work is divided into thirteen sections: the 1st. contains the general laws of motion. 2. The laws of gravity, the descent of heavy bodies, and the motion of projectiles. 3. The properties of the mechanical powers; the balance, the leaver, the wheel, the pulley, the screw, and the wedge. 4. The descent of bodies upon inclined planes, and in curve surfaces; and the motion of pendulums. 5. The center of gravity, and its properties. 6. The centers of percussion, oscillation, and gyration. 7. The quantity and direction of the pressure of beams of timber, by their weight; and the forces necessary to sustain them. 8. The strength of beams of timber in all positions; and their stress by any weight acting upon them, or by any forces applied to them. 9. The properties of fluids, the principles of hydrostatics, hydraulics, and pneumatics, 10. The resistance of fluids, their forces and actions upon bodies; the motions of ships, and the positions of their fails. 11. Methods of communicating, directing, and regulating any motion in the practice of mechanics. 12. The powers and properties of compound engines; of forces acting within the machines; and concerning friction. 13. The description of compound machines or engines, and the methods of computing their powers or forces; with some account as the advantages or disadvantages of their construction."

"The course of study includes the teaching of English, mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, physics, and drawing ; designing, weaving, and manufacturing ; dyeing, mechanical engineering; and metal working ; building construction and wood."

"This is a great drawback on the introduction of steam-vessels generally abroad; and until the profession of mechanical engineering is considered a fit pursuit for respectable young men, it must remain so."

"Mechanical Engineering is applicable rather to works connected with private enterprise, such as the designing and construction of steam machinery for the purposes of navigation and transportation, the adaptation of such machinery to mills and factories, the construction of water-wheels, the fabrication of materials, iron, steel, and brass, for the purposes of the engineer, the architect, and manufacturer ; and the manufacture of implements and machinery for agriculture, for mining, and for domestic purposes."

"The number of our students of Engineering, especially of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, is becoming so great that we are somewhat embarrassed to make proper provision for them."

"Announcement of the ; A School of Mechanical Engineering, founded by Edwin A. Stevens, Esq. Hoboken, New Jersey. 1874."

"Mechanical Engineering may be defined as being the application of mathematics to Science, with particular reference to the design and fabrication of all forms of machinery. Since engineering is the combined science and art of utilizing the forces and materials of nature, and since this utilization is accomplished in nearly all cases by machines, or by processes working through machines, it is evident that mechanical engineering is the basis of all art and industry."

"There are many good mechanical engineers; — there are also many good " businessmen ;"— but the two are rarely combined in one person."

"It has been suggested that because the able mechanical engineers who have taken up the subject of construction are mainly to be credited with the advances which have been made in electrical lightning, therefor electrical engineering per se is to be a thing of the past. For the further, those who would be electrical engineers must first be mechanical engineers, and then somehow obtain a smattering of electrical knowledge, and all will be will with them..."

"Mechanical differs from Civil Engineering in the fact that the former provides or makes what the latter uses. On this account, a knowledge of mechanical engineering is of invaluable service to the civil engineer, and it should be the rule to obtain this practically, whatever branch of engineering the student may ultimately follow."

"The young man fresh from a great public school, or the refinement of a well-kept English home, will find the practical work of mechanical engineering extremely irksome and distasteful at first. Mechanical engineering is distinctly dirty work."

"Mechanical Engineering may be defined as being the application of mathematics to Science, with particular reference to the design and fabrication of all forms of machinery. Since engineering is the combined science and art of utilizing the"

"Mechanical Engineering is that branch of engineering which broadly speaking covers the fields of heat, power, design of machinery, industrial management, and manufacturing problems."

"Mechanical engineering may be defined as "the science and art of utilizing by machines the forces and materials of nature.""

"The two main purposes of mechanical engineering are: first, to design and make tools and equipment for turning out machinery required by all branches of engineering, industry, and commerce, and, second, to design and manufacture, by means of said tools and equipment."

"The analytical and factual approach to engineering problems is identical with that to business problems. There is no more fundamental training or mental discipline for business than engineering, particularly mechanical engineering."

"Learning to practice mechanical engineering is a lifetime assignment. New problems are continually demanding new analyses, new measurements, and new experiments for their solution."

"Mechanical engineering is now the largest branch, with nearly 40 percent of the profession's members. Civil engineering, which was the largest branch prior to World War II, has dropped to second place, with about 25 percent of all engineers."

"Mechanical engineering is that branch of the profession which deals with devices and equipment whose design, manufacture, and operation are essentially mechanical in nature."

"The mechanical engineer is concerned with the generation and use of power, the design and development of a wide variety of products and machinery, and the operations and methods of manufacture. As such he engages in the design operation, and control of conventional and nuclear power plants. He designs and develops automobiles, engines, turbines, fluid machinery, production machinery, and equipment; heating, ventilating, air conditioning, refrigeration systems and equipment, appliances and other consumer goods."

"Engineering is no longer just an industrial discipline or technology — it is also a concept of statesmanship and of humanitarianism and a challenge worthy of our best. Mechanical Engineering is a career which follows a never-setting sun."

"Mechanical engineering may be defined as the manufacture, installation, and repair of all kinds of machinery (including machine tools), prime movers and boilers, and engines"

"Mechanical engineering is scientific theory. But actual mechanical engineering is impossible without praxis. Even in mechanical technology, concrete reality, or the individual gestalt, always contains"

"The field of mechanical engineering is so broad that several specialized branches have grown from it."

"Mechanical engineering is a major area of engineering. Mechanical engineering design, or mechanical design in short, refers to the design of devices, products, systems, or processes of a mechanical nature."

"The field of mechanical engineering is frankly as old as human life itself. Fire, the wheel, the printing press, and many of the life- changing discoveries and inventions of the past few centuries are simply applications of mechanical engineering in order to solve everyday problems."

"My point is that the enterprise engineer uses, or is guided by, all of the concepts in the above list as may be appropriate to the specific task at hand; in many design tasks good citizenship, psychology, or ethics is more important than good calculus in achieving the optimum-solution or design. The preceding recommendations are intended primarily for Engineering Schools where already the student is trained and the faculty is experienced in methods of science and in the analysis and design functions."

"The enterprise engineer must be a leader, a designer, and a synthesizer. He is a doer. He understands theory as a guide to practice. He must concern himself with human organization because the pace and success of technology are becoming more dependent on interaction with the social system and less on scientific discovery. In private as well as public research and development, such men must find ways to reverse the deterioration of ethics and efficiency. They will strengthen the information links between physical design and the public so that technology can better serve society. In the public sector they must show the level of wisdom and leadership that can co-ordinate great engineering projects with politics. They will recognise that informing the public and becoming a nucleus for crystallising public opinion is even more important in many programmes than is the underlying science."

"Professor Forrester told the National Academy of Engineering this fall, the "enterprise engineer," cast in the mold of the "professional engineer of folklore," is needed now more than ever before "to resynthesize the fragments caused by the specialization of other man"."

"A major change is occurring in the nature of work and the way that organizations relate to a rapidly changing environment. Many enterprises (and management teams) face obsolescence because of their inability to respond and adapt to this new situation. Enterprises can adapt if top management designs an appropriate information infrastructure, one which leverages human learning. A set of change processes, known as enterprise engineering, equips organizations to move towards such an infrastructure."

"Enterprise operation efficiency is seriously constrained by the inability to provide the right information, in the right place, at the right time. In spite of significant advances in technology it is still difficult to access information used or produced by different applications due to the hardware and software incompatibilities of manufacturing and information processing equipment. But it is this information and operation knowledge which makes up most of the business value of the enterprise and which enables it to complete in the market place. Therefore, sufficient and timely information access is a prerequisite for its efficient use in the operation of enterprises... The Open System Architecture for CIM... CIMOSA concepts provide operation structuring bases on cooperating processes. Enterprise operations are represented in terms of functionality and dynamic behavior (control flow). Information needed and produced, as well as resources and organisational aspects relevant in the course of the operation are modelled in the process model. However, the different aspects may be viewed separately for additional structuring and detailing during the enterprise engineering process."

"In the early ‘80’s, there was little interest in the idea of Enterprise Reengineering or and the use of formalisms and models was generally limited to some aspects of application development within the Information Systems community. The subject of "architecture" was acknowledged at that time, however, there was little definition to support the concept. This lack of definition precipitated the initial investigation that ultimately resulted in the "Framework for Information Systems Architecture." Although from the outset, it was clear that it should have been referred to as a "Framework for Enterprise Architecture," that enlarged perspective could only now begin to be generally understood as a result of the relatively recent and increased, worldwide focus on Enterprise "engineering.""

"Enterprise Engineering is based on the belief that an enterprise, as any other complex system can be designed or improved in an orderly fashion thus giving a better overall result than ad hoc organisation and design."

"Martin's changemaker is the "Enterprise Engineer," who is an expert on what changes work in organizations. Enterprise Engineers need training to understand the mechanisms underlying corporate processes and an in-depth expertise in the family of change methods. Steeped in study of all methods, the Enterprise Engineer's skill is formidable."

"In enterprise modelling, we want to define the actions performed within an enterprise, and define constraints for plans and schedules which are constructed to satisfy the goals of the enterprise. This leads to the following set of informal competency questions:"

"Various perspectives exist in an enterprise, such as efficiency, quality, and cost. Any system for enterprise engineering must be capable of representing and managing these different perspectives in a well-defined way."

"Enterprise Engineering is defined as that body of knowledge, principles, and practices having to do with the analysis, design, implementation and operation of an enterprise. In a continually changing and unpredictable competitive environment, the Enterprise Engineer addresses a fundamental question: “how to design and improve all elements associated with the total enterprise through the use of engineering and analysis methods and tools to more effectively achieve its goals and objectives”..."

"Enterprise engineering is an integrated set of disciplines for building an enterprise, its processes, and systems."

"The presence of an enterprise reference architecture aids an enterprise in its ability to understand its structure and processes. Similar to a computer architecture, the enterprise architecture is comprised of several views. The enterprise architecture should provide activity, organizational, business rule (information), resource, and process views of an organization."

"An enterprise architecture is a "blueprint" or "picture" which assists in the design of an enterprise. An enterprise architecture must define three things. First, what are the activities that an enterprise performs? Second, how should these activities be performed? And finally, how should the enterprise be constructed? An enterprise is a collection of enterprise activities organized into a set of business processes which cooperate to produce desired enterprise results... The architecture takes a systems view of an enterprise in which an enterprise is seen as a system which takes in inputs and produces outputs under some set of environmental constraints..."

"Enterprise engineering is... the art of understanding , defining, specifying, analysing and implementing business processes for the enterprise entire life cycle, so that the enterprise can achieve its objectives, be cost-effective, and be more competitive in its market environment."

"Enterprises are rather complex systems which have to be managed for their internal affairs, but more importantly for the many relations to the different environments in which they are operating. Today, these environments are changing much more rapidly and the need for relevant information becomes of paramount importance in the decision making processes at all levels of enterprise management. Fluctuations in market demands, technology evolution and changing regulations require very flexible enterprise operations, capable of reacting to those changes. These reactions must be based on relevant and up-to-date information which must be supported by new decision support technology. The challenges in decision support concern the identification of relevant information, easy access and intelligent use of this information. Building and maintaining the enterprise knowledge base and enabling its efficient use for decision support are major tasks of enterprise engineering."

"Enterprise architecture (EA) promotes the belief that an enterprise, as a complex system, can be designed or improved in an orderly fashion achieving better overall results than ad-hoc organisation and design. EA is a co-operative effort of designers, analysts and managers and uses enterprise models in the process... enterprise models carry meaning. This resulted in requirements for the enterprise engineering process, which—if not met—can limit the viability of the process. The analysis of the same factors resulted in requirements for improved Enterprise Modelling Tools."

"Enterprise Engineering is the collection of those tools and methods which one can use to design and continually maintain an enterprise."

"James Martin [in his The great transition (1995)] claims that enterprise engineering requires a focus on seven disciplines which can be linked directly to the value framework processes:"

"Enterprise engineering is an emerging discipline for developing enterprise capabilities. It is a multidisciplinary approach that takes a broad perspective in synthesizing technical and nontechnical (political, economic, organizational, operational, social and cultural) aspects of an enterprise capability. Enterprise engineering is directed towards enabling and achieving enterprise-level and cross-enterprise operations outcomes. Enterprise engineering is based on the premise that an enterprise is a collection of entities that want to succeed and will adapt to do so. The implication of this statement is that enterprise engineering processes are more about shaping the space in which organizations develop systems so that an organization innovating and operating to succeed in its local mission will—automatically and at the same time - innovate and operate in the interest of the enterprise. Enterprise engineering processes are focused more on shaping the environment, incentives and rules of success in which classical engineering takes place. Enterprise engineering coordinates, harmonizes and integrates the efforts of organizations and individuals through processes informed or inspired by natural evolution and economic markets. Enterprise engineering manages largely through interventions (innovations) instead of (rigorous/strict) controls."

"Enterprise Engineering is the application of engineering principles to the management of enterprises. It encompasses the application of knowledge, principles, and disciplines related to the analysis, design, implementation and operation of all elements associated with an enterprise. In essence it is an interdisciplinary field which combines systems engineering and strategic management as it seeks to engineer the entire enterprise in terms of the products, processes and business operations. The view is one of continuous improvement and continued adaptation as firms, processes and markets develop along their life cycles. This total systems approach encompasses the traditional areas of research and development, product design, operations and manufacturing as well as information systems and strategic management"

"Enterprise engineering is an emerging mode of systems engineering that manages and shapes forces of uncertainty to achieve enterprise capabilities through interventions instead of controls. It is directed toward enabling and achieving enterprise-level and cross-enterprise capability outcomes by building effective, efficient networks of individual systems to meet the objectives of the enterprise."

"Enterprise engineering is an emerging discipline that studies enterprises from an engineering perspective. The first paradigm of this discipline is that enterprises are purposefully designed and implemented systems. Consequently, they can be re-designed and re-implemented if there is a need for change. The second paradigm of enterprise engineering is that enterprises are social systems. This means that the system elements are social individuals, and that the essence of an enterprise's operation lies in the entering into and complying with commitments between these social individuals."

"Enterprise engineering is rooted in both the organizational sciences and the information system sciences. In our current understanding, three concepts are paramount to the theoretical and practical pursuit of enterprise engineering: enterprise ontology, enterprise architecture, and enterprise governance."

"A longer term objective for enterprise engineering is to make the practice a distributed activity, whereupon enterprise models become the everyday tool for all actors in the enterprise, from workers to the CEO."

"Cross-enterprise engineering is needed to support the global cooperation of internal and external organization units in the transformation of classic product development into a virtual process."

"Enterprise Engineering is an emerging discipline, originating from both the Information System Sciences and the Organizational Sciences."

"It is the mission of the discipline of Enterprise Engineering to develop new, appropriate theories, models, methods and other artifacts for the analysis, design, implementation, and governance of enterprises by combining (relevant parts of) management and organization science, information systems science, and computer science. The ambition is to address (all) traditional topics in said disciplines from the Enterprise Engineering Paradigm. The result of our efforts should be theoretically rigorous and practically relevant."

"He who builds in the streets must allow himself to get dirty."

"Improvement makes strait roads: but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius."

"A physician, a civil engineer, and a computer scientist were arguing about what was the oldest profession in the world. The physician remarked, "Well, in the Bible, it says that God created Eve from a rib taken out of Adam. This clearly required surgery, and so I can rightly claim that mine is the oldest profession in the world." The civil engineer interrupted, and said, "But even earlier in the book of Genesis, it states that God created the order of the heavens and the earth from out of the chaos. This was the first and certainly the most spectacular application of civil engineering. Therefore, fair doctor, you are wrong: mine is the oldest profession in the world." The computer scientist leaned back in her chair, smiled, and then said confidently, "Ah, but who do you think created the chaos?""

"Men build bridges and throw railroads across deserts, and yet they contend successfully that the job of sewing on a button is beyond them. Accordingly, they don’t have to sew buttons."

"The civil engineer is the real 19th century architect."

"Mechanical differs from Civil Engineering in the fact that the former provides or makes what the latter uses. On this account, a knowledge of mechanical engineering is of invaluable service to the civil engineer, and it should be the rule to obtain this practically, whatever branch of engineering the student may ultimately follow."

"His father loved him dearly, but his work, that of a civil engineer, had left him with but little time for his family. Energetic, active, and always taken up with some responsible work, he did not spoil his children with excessive tenderness."

"The form a city assumes as it evolves over time owes more to large-scale works of civil engineering - what we now call infrastructure - than almost any other factor save topography."

"No greater care is required upon any works than upon such as are to withstand the action of water; for this reason, all parts of the work need to be done exactly according to the rules of the art which all workmen know, but few observe."

"Go for civil engineering, because civil engineering is the branch of engineering which teaches you the most about managing people. Managing people is a skill which is very, very useful and applies almost regardless of what you do."

"Mechanical engineering is now the largest branch, with nearly 40 percent of the profession's members. Civil engineering, which was the largest branch prior to World War II, has dropped to second place, with about 25 percent of all engineers."

"Bhakra Nangal Project is something tremendous, something stupendous, something which shakes you up when you see it. Bhakra, the new temple of resurgent India, is the symbol of India’s progress."

"If you can’t reduce a difficult engineering problem to just one 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, you will probably never understand it."

"A great bridge is a great monument which should serve to make known the splendour and genius of a nation; one should not occupy oneself with efforts to perfect it architecturally, for taste is always susceptible to change, but to conserve always in its form and decoration the character of solidity which is proper."

"From the laying out of a line of a tunnel to its final completion, the work may be either a series of experiments made at the expense of the proprietors of the project, or a series of judicious applications of the results of previous experience."

"Comparatively few engineers are good mathematicians; and... it is fortunate that such is the case; for nature rarely combines high mathematical talent, with that practical tact, and observation of outward things, so essential to a successful engineer. There have been... brilliant exceptions; but they are very rare. But few even of those who have been tolerable mathematicians when young, can, as they advance in years, and become engaged in business, spare the time necessary for retaining such accomplishments. Nearly all the scientific principles which constitute the foundation of civil engineering are susceptible of complete and satisfactory explanation to any person who really possesses only so much elementary knowledge of arithmetic and natural philosophy as is supposed to be taught to boys of twelve or fourteen in our public schools."

"Mechanical Engineering is applicable rather to works connected with private enterprise, such as the designing and construction of steam machinery for the purposes of navigation and transportation, the adaptation of such machinery to mills and factories, the construction of water-wheels, the fabrication of materials, iron, steel, and brass, for the purposes of the engineer, the architect, and manufacturer ; and the manufacture of implements and machinery for agriculture, for mining, and for domestic purposes. But the prominent feature of Mechanical Engineering, that which contributes more than any other to elevate it to the rank of a liberal or learned profession, and at the same time separates it from the science of Civil Engineering, is, that all its operations relate to power, motion, and work."

"There is nothing in machinery, there is nothing in embankments and railways and iron bridges and engineering devices to oblige them to be ugly. Ugliness is the measure of imperfection."

"This morning I came, I saw and I was conquered, as everyone would be who sees for the first time this great feat of mankind."

"Ten years ago the place where we are gathered was an unpeopled, forbidding desert. In the bottom of a gloomy canyon, whose precipitous walls rose to a height of more than a thousand feet, flowed a turbulent, dangerous river. The mountains on either side of the canyon were difficult of access with neither road nor trail, and their rocks were protected by neither trees nor grass from the blazing heat of the sun. The site of Boulder City was a cactus-covered waste. The transformation wrought here in these years is a twentieth-century marvel."

"We are here to celebrate the completion of the greatest dam in the world, rising 726 feet above the bed-rock of the river and altering the geography of a whole region; we are here to see the creation of the largest artificial lake in the world—115 miles long, holding enough water, for example, to cover the State of Connecticut to a depth of ten feet; and we are here to see nearing completion a power house which will contain the largest generators and turbines yet installed in this country, machinery that can continuously supply nearly two million horsepower of electric energy."

"What is happening in the US between now and 2025 [is] a huge expansion of oil production, about 80% of the global oil production growth comes from the US. It exceeds the huge expansion of Saudi Arabia which we witnessed in the 1960s and 70s."

"Rex Buchanan, interim director of the Kansas Geological Survey, was watching a Kansas City Royals game in September 2014 when his cell phone started buzzing with alerts from the USGS. Tremors were shaking south-central Kansas near the state's border with Oklahoma. This was not a surprise, because more than 100 earthquakes had visited Kansas during that year, up from an average of one every two years. But the tremors were growing stronger and soon reached magnitude 4.2. Kansas governor Sam Brownback convened an induced-seismicity task force to evaluate the quakes. The task force, chaired by Buchanan, recommended restricting injection volumes within five seismic zones across two counties. How were Kansas officials able to reach a consensus? “I don't think we could come up with any other explanation,” Buchanan says. “You see a level of activity like we saw: a dramatic, dramatic increase, and in almost exactly the place where the really large-volume wells are going in—and where you see the same correlation in Oklahoma. It's pretty hard to come to any other conclusion.” He adds that he and his colleagues had the benefit of watching science and regulations develop in Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma. So far the measures Kansas took seem to have had an impact. “Certainly our activity has been down lately,” he says, in terms of both earthquake rates and size. “But I have pressed people real hard not to take the approach that this is some sort of problem solved, because it's not.”"

"“Scores of papers on injection-induced earthquakes were published in the geophysical literature in the following 40-plus years, and the problem was well understood and appreciated by seismologists,” says Bill Ellsworth, a Stanford University geophysicist who launched his career at the USGS while the Rangely experiment was under way. He believes professional skepticism slowed the formation of a consensus. “There were a lot of doubts expressed by very good petroleum engineers that [earthquakes caused by injection wells] were even possible,” he says. “Knowledge of the whole physical process was either lost or had not been effectively communicated to a broad community.”"

"To many Oklahomans, it is clear that that risk has risen sharply. Data back up their experiences. The earthquake rate in the state has grown at an astounding pace. In 2013 the state recorded 109 quakes of magnitude 3 and greater. The following year the number jumped to 585, and in 2015 it reached 890. The escalation prompted two unusual warnings jointly issued by the USGS and the OGS in October 2013 and May 2014. Seismologists stated that Oklahoma had a significantly increased chance of seeing a damaging magnitude 5.5 temblor. “It was the first time I think we'd ever issued an earthquake advisory east of the Rockies,” says Robert Williams, the USGS central and eastern U.S. coordinator for earthquake hazards."

"Over the past few years, fracking fever has swept through several European nations, including Denmark, Lithuania, Romania and especially Poland, which has seen more shale exploration than any other nation on the continent. Fracking might help to boost gas production in Europe at a time when it is facing a sharp decline. Older gas fields in the North Sea are running out, as are deposits in Germany, Italy and Romania. The disappointing output has increased Europe's dependence on imported gas, mainly from Russia."

"The results in Poland to date indeed have been disappointing,” concedes geologist Scott Stevens of ARI. He says that the main reason for the unproductive wells was “extremely high” stresses in the rock, which makes fracking less effective. “There was no way that the exploration companies could know that in advance,” he notes. Nonetheless, he argues, “It is too soon to dismiss Poland's extensive shale potential.” Given the limited available data, he does not see a reason to revise ARI's estimate."

"By the time Shell tasked Hubbert with explaining how fracking worked, “we had the records of several thousand fracturing jobs, with varying degrees of reliability in their data,” he recalled. “We had to smoke out useful information.”"

"When Hubbert presented the results at the Amsterdam conference, “it was very well received by the highest level technical people,” he recalled, “accepted completely, with no significant criticism.” After this vote of confidence, Shell organized training sessions on the new analysis for its field engineers. When it came time for the first course, Willis was away so Hubbert gave it himself. “What I discovered was that the theoretical argument was having no effect whatever on these men,” Hubbert recalled. The engineers were absolutely sure that the fractures were horizontal. Every article, every ad on fracking showed fractures oriented that way. They had been “completely brainwashed,” Hubbert thought. “They didn’t have any real evidence, but they’d been so thoroughly indoctrinated on this thing that they knew damned well these fractures were horizontal.” It mattered, because if they didn’t understand the forces at work, they couldn’t control it precisely. The technique would remain more art than science."

"In Shell’s Bellaire lab, one of the nation’s best-funded research facilities, sat the contraption Willis had assembled at home over the weekend. It was a goldfish bowl, filled with liquid Knox gelatin and some plaster in it. Willis had used the gelatin to simulate rock—appropriate, given Hubbert’s work on laws of scaling—and had stuck an Alka-Seltzer bottle in the middle of it to mimic a well. He’d put the liquid gelatin in the fridge and let it set, then pulled out the bottle. Then he’d used a baster to pump a slurry of plaster of Paris down the hole, filling it until the plaster began to push its way into the gelatin, forming fractures. As their theory predicted, the fractures were vertical. Although Willis’s setup was kludged together, Hubbert immediately realized it was what they needed to win over the field engineers: a clear demonstration. They’d have an opportunity to make their case at an internal Shell conference in early 1956, in several weeks’ time. They got to work on building a larger version of the model. To replace Willis’s goldfish bowl, Hubbert scoped out bigger aquariums on sale at local shops. At the Shell conference, Hubbert and Willis explained their experiment and showed the plaster casts, first from one angle, with the fractures flaring out from either side of the well. Then they rotated the cast, so the audience could see that the fractures were thin and sharp, like a knife’s blade. And of course, they were undoubtedly vertical. Within a week of this demonstration, field engineers began sending in data they’d collected after fracturing wells. Some of them had put rubber plugs down wells to form an impression of the wall. Others sent cameras down the hole. This field data showed the fractures were indeed vertical. The theory was right—and finally the engineers believed it. Willis’s contraption “had a magical effect,” as Hubbert put it. “It made Christians out of these people.”"

"Unlike Ahab (spoiler alert), Drake wasn’t destroyed by his discovery — at least not instantly. But although he was the first to engineer a successful oil-drilling system, lining his well with pipe to keep it from caving in, he never patented the method, and the money he’d made when he struck oil soon dried up. A century later, TIME referred to him as “a sickly, bearded failure of a man in a stovepipe hat” in a story that nonetheless acknowledged that “[t]hough Discoverer Drake wound up virtually penniless and forgotten, his find opened the scramble for oil across the land,” inspiring a legion of oil prospectors to chase what had become, by 1959, “the greatest single source of wealth in America.”"

"We currently import around half of our gas needs, but by 2030 that could be as high as 75%. That's why we're encouraging investment in our shale-gas exploration so we can add new sources of home-grown supply."

"With that gas and oil, however, come vast quantities of very salty water. “The oil and gas business is really a water-handling business,” says Scott Tinker, Texas's state geologist and director of the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology. The water comes from the same rocks as the oil and gas. All three are remnants of ancient seas that heat, pressure and time transformed. “The pore spaces, or tiny holes, in the rock remain filled with these ancient oceans, so when we drill wells today that water is produced to the surface,” Tinker says. Although the water is natural, it can be several orders of magnitude more saline than seawater and is often laced with naturally occurring radioactive material. It is toxic to plants and animals, so operators bury it deep underground to protect drinking-water supplies closer to the surface."

"By using genetic engineering, biological researchers have already developed new weapons that are much more effective than their natural counterparts. Countless examples from the daily work of molecular biologists could be presented here, not least the introduction of antibiotic resistance into bacterial pathogens, which today is routine work in almost any microbiology laboratory. Indeed, many research projects in basic science show—sometimes unwillingly and unwittingly—how to overcome current scientific and technological limits in the military use of pathogenic agents. Furthermore, genetic engineering is not merely a theoretical possibility for future biowarfare: it has already been applied in past weapons programmes, particularly in the former Soviet Union. One example is the USSR's 'invisible anthrax', resulting from the introduction of an alien gene into Bacillus anthracis that altered its immunological properties (Pomerantsev et al., 1997). Existing vaccines proved to be ineffective against this new genetically engineered strain."

"Molecular biology and genetic engineering are still in their infancy, and more technical possibilities will arise in the years to come—for military abuse too (Fraser & Dando, 2001). More efficient classical biowarfare agents will probably have only a marginal role, even if the genetically engineered 'superbug' is still routinely featured in newspaper reports. More likely and more alarming are weapons for new types of conflicts and warfare scenarios, namely low-intensity warfare or secret operations, for economic warfare or for sabotage activities. To prevent the hostile exploitation of biology now and forever, a bundle of measures must be taken, from strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention to building an awareness in the scientific community about the possibilities and dangers of abuse. Any kind of biotechnological or biomedical research, development or production must be performed in an internationally transparent and controlled manner. In cases in which military abuse seems to be imminent and likely, alternative ways to pursue the same research goal have to be developed. Furthermore, as we mentioned above with regard to the smallpox genome sequence, it might also be necessary to apply restrictions to certain research and/or publications."

"Can genetic engineers restore a rapid worldwide rise in grainland productivity? This prospect is not promising simply because plant breeders using traditional techniques have largely exploited the genetic potential for increasing the share of photosynthate that goes into seed. Once this is pushed close to its limit, the remaining options tend to be relatively small, clustering around efforts to raise the plant’s tolerance of various stresses, such as drought or soil salinity. One major option left to scientists is to increase the efficiency of the process of photosynthesis itself—something that has thus far remained beyond their reach."

"You can stop splitting the atom; you can stop visiting the moon; you can stop using aerosols; you may even decide not to kill entire populations by the use of a few bombs. But you cannot recall a new form of life."

"Transferring genes between utterly unrelated species takes us into the realms that belong to God, and to God alone."

"When scientists began creating adenoviral vectors in the 1980s, most worked with a particular kind of adenovirus called Ad5, which ubiquitously infects humans and causes the common cold. Researchers stripped Ad5 of the genes it needed to replicate and inserted those genes into genetically engineered cell lines. That ensured that the modified viruses could be grown only in these special cells in the lab. It also opened up space in the Ad5 genome for scientists to stitch in new genes of their choosing. Many scientists hoped to use Ad5 to deliver a human gene that could correct rare genetic mutations—an approach called gene therapy. Those efforts came to a grinding halt in 1999 when a teenage boy with a rare genetic liver disease died after receiving an injection of an Ad5-based gene therapy, which had been designed in James Wilson’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania. The large dose of 38 trillion viruses the patient was given sparked massive body-wide inflammation and sent his immune system into overdrive. After that, scientists mostly stopped using adenoviral vectors for gene therapy, in which the dose needs to be high to reach many cells of the body."

"It is difficult to make a general judgement about genetic modification (GM), whether vegetable or animal, medical or agricultural, since these vary greatly among themselves and call for specific considerations. The risks involved are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application. Genetic mutations, in fact, have often been, and continue to be, caused by nature itself. Nor are mutations caused by human intervention a modern phenomenon. The domestication of animals, the crossbreeding of species and other older and universally accepted practices can be mentioned as examples. We need but recall that scientific developments in GM cereals began with the observation of natural bacteria which spontaneously modified plant genomes. In nature, however, this process is slow and cannot be compared to the fast pace induced by contemporary technological advances, even when the latter build upon several centuries of scientific progress. Although no conclusive proof exists that GM cereals may be harmful to human beings, and in some regions their use has brought about economic growth which has helped to resolve problems, there remain a number of significant difficulties which should not be underestimated."

"Animals tell us something. If the animals have suffered this way [from GMOs], potentially for us, let’s listen to what they’re telling us. Let’s take heed."

"But if the same tests, the same foods are examined by an independent scientist, then it turns out that in almost every case there are quite serious harms done to the rats, the mice or the other poor unfortunate animals, particularly internal organs like liver and kidneys and things of that sort."

"Genetic engineering is to traditional crossbreeding what the nuclear bomb was to the sword."

"So you did do it. You amalgamated one of Godzilla's cells together with the plant's cells. Are you proud of this? What kind science do you call this?"

"I stand by my assertions that although you can know what happens to any individual species that you modify, you cannot be certain what will happen to the ecosystem. Also, we have a strange situation where we have malnourished fat [[people]. It’s not that we need more food. It’s that we need to manage our food system better. So when corporations seek government funding for genetic modification of food sources, I stroke my chin."

"I went to Monsasnto, and I spent a lot of time with the scientists there, and I have revised my outlook, and I'm very excited about telling the world. When you’re in love, you want to tell the world."

"Everyone is scared of genetic DIY. It's crucial for artists to work with such technologies. It is important that we work between science and art."

"Genetic engineering crosses a fundamental threshold in the human manipulation of the planet, changing the nature of life itself."

"In principle, there's now nothing to stop intelligent moral agents "fixing" the [conditionally-activated level of] subjective physical distress undergone by members of entire free-living species by choosing and propagating benign alleles of SCN9A or its homologs via gene drives, i.e. engineering via CRISPR-mediated gene-editing not a currently utopian "no pain" biosphere ... but a “low pain” biosphere."

"When we wrote Ecofeminism we raised the issue of reductionist, mechanistic science and the attitude of mastery over and conquest of nature as an expression of capitalist patriarchy. Today the contest between an ecological and feminist world-view and a worldview shaped by capitalist patriarchy is more intense than ever. This contest is particularly intense in the area of food. GMOs embody the vision of capitalist patriarchy. They perpetuate the idea of ‘master molecules’and mechanistic reductionism long after the life sciences have gone beyond reductionism, and patents on life reflect the capitalist patriarchal illusion of creation. There is no science in viewing DNA as a ‘master molecule’ and genetic engineering as a game of Lego, in which genes are moved around without any impact on the organism or the environment. This is a new pseudo-science that has taken on the status of a religion. Science cannot justify patents on life and seed. Shuffling genes is not making life; living organisms make themselves. Patents on seed mean denying the contributions of millions of years of evolution and thousands of years of farmers’ breeding. One could say that a new religion, a new cosmology, a new creation myth is being put in place, where biotechnology corporations like Monsanto replace Creation as ‘creators’. GMO means ‘God move over’. Stewart Brand has actually said ‘We are as gods and we had better get used to it.’"

"I know it's a long shot and people would say it's 'too absurd'… but I'm doing this with hopes of making a Mickey Mouse some day."

"There is an expression out there that a failed gene therapy makes a good vaccine."

"In a more general sense, all the quarter-million plant species— in fact, all species of organisms—are potential donors of genes that can be transferred by genetic engineering into crop species in order to improve their performance. With the insertion of the right snippets of DNA, new strains can be created that are variously cold-hardy, pest-proofed, perennial, fast-growing, highly nutritious, multipurpose, water-conservative, and more easily sowed and harvested. And compared with traditional breeding techniques, genetic engineering is all but instantaneous."

"Evaluating the potential threat posed by advances in biotechnology, especially genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and synthetic biology remains a contentious issue. The rapid development of the tools of molecular biology and metabolic engineering has enabled the development of chimeric organisms which possess characteristics which are not native to the wild variant. This is commonplace in the area of biomanufacturing, where genes are introduced into organisms such as E coli and products manufactured via large-scale fermentation. More recently, entire metabolic pathways, albeit of limited complexity, have been engineered into organisms, for example, for the production of artemisinin in yeast. In addition to such metabolic engineering projects, whole genomes are being sequenced, leading to the possibility of creating organisms de novo. Numerous lectures, briefings and articles have argued that the dual use nature of biotechnology, the training of foreign students in American universities, and the easy availability of information on the internet have given potential adversaries access to biological weapons of unimagined which pose an existential threat. Some believe that, inevitably, these advances will lead to a catastrophic biological attack. Others have argued the opposite that making all information publicly available will enable a more universal “white biotechnology” which will ultimately monitor the field and provide the means to defeat any threat developed by adversaries. It has been argued that, despite these advances, the scientific and technical requirements, as well as the fundamental laws of natural selection, will prevent such an attack."

"Since its first pragmatic elucidation in 1953, DNA structure and genetic engineering has extended its reach into agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine, and even organic materials."

"Since the early 1990’s genetically engineered plants have been commercially available. So called “first generation” transgenic plants have been engineered for characteristics that enhance the agricultural yield and marketing. Such characteristics include resistance to pests, herbicides and extreme climates, as well as improved product shelf life. For example, since their first commercial cultivation in 1996, plants have been genetically modified for tolerance to the herbicides glufosinate and glyphosate. A “second generation” of transgenic plants, now in research and development, is aimed at enhancing consumer satisfaction by enhancing taste, texture, or appearance of produce. To date, no second generation transgenic plants are on the market."

"Gene therapy, involving the use of viruses as a vector for introducing generic material into cells, has had some success in treating genetic disorders such as severe combined immunodeficiency, and treatments are being developed for a range of other currently incurable diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and muscular dystrophy. Genes introduced in this manner are not transmitted to the next generation. Gene therapy targeting the reproductive cells—so-called “Germ line Gene Therapy”—at present carries an unquantifiable risk associated with interfering with other genes, hence near-term development and commercialization of this technology is unlikely."

"The genetic material for modification may be either derived from natural organisms using standard recombinant DNA techniques, or produced by DNA synthesis, the latter being much less labor intensive. In recent work, DNA sequences on the order of 1 million base-pairs have been synthesized entirely from digitized genome sequence information, and the resulting organisms were phenotypical and capable of self-replication."

"Development of novel (i.e., not known to be naturally-occurring) GMOs exhibiting unique designer characteristics requires substantially greater knowledge and capability. Many industrialized nations have laboratories capable of analyzing which immune response modifier genes in humans and livestock, when inserted into an organism together with pathogenicity (e.g., adherence and invasive) factor, will yield highly infectious pathogenic organisms."

"Hannah Devlin: In your book you describe a nightmare you had involving Hitler wearing a pig mask, asking to learn more about your “amazing technology”. Do you still have anxiety dreams about where Crispr might leave the human race?"

"Hannah Devlin: In 2015, you called for a moratorium on the clinical use of gene editing. Where do you stand on using Crispr to edit embryos these days?"

"Snake: I thought using genetically modified soldiers was prohibited by international law."

"Administration is both social engineering and applied psychology. It is apparatus and mechanics, incentives and human nature. Let no one think it is merely the former. Nowhere is the need for psychology greater than in the organization, direction, and inspiration of men working in large groups. Outstanding administrative results are produced by spirit, morale, atmosphere; these, in turn, are the product of psychological mainsprings and invigorating incentives. As Benjamin Lippincott has recognized, both governmental and business administration resolve fundamentally into the role played by effective incentives."

"I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering. I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate. I think we need a national conversation to get to a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors."

"It is characteristic of our age to endeavour to replace virtues by technology. That is to say, wherever possible we strive to use methods of physical or social engineering to achieve goals which our ancestors thought attainable only by the training of character. Thus, we try so far as possible to make contraception take the place of chastity, and anaesthetics to take the place of fortitude; we replace resignation by insurance policies and munificence by the Welfare State. It would be idle romanticism to deny that such techniques and institutions are often less painful and more efficient methods of achieving the goods and preventing the evils which unaided virtue once sought to achieve and avoid. But it would be an equal and opposite folly to hope that the take-over of virtue by technology may one day be complete, so that the necessity for the laborious acquisition of the capacity for rational choice by individuals can be replaced by the painless application of the fruits of scientific discovery over the whole field of human intercourse and enterprise."

"The research needed for social practice can best be characterized as research for social management or social engineering. It is a type of action research, a comparative research of the conditions and effects of various forms of social action, and research leading to social action."

"Regarding social order, Fukuyama writes, "The systematic study of how order, and thus social capital, can emerge in spontaneous and decentralized fashion is one of the most important intellectual developments of the late twentieth century." He correctly attributes the modern origins of this argument to F.A. Hayek, whose pioneering contributions to cognitive science, the study of cultural evolution, and the dynamics of social change put him in the forefront of the most creative scholars of the 20th century. But Hayek's views about the "spontaneity" of social order remain controversial. In their extreme form, they imply that all deliberate efforts to manipulate social order — social engineering — are doomed to failure because the complex nature of our cultural heritage makes a complete understanding of the human condition impossible."

"Conservatives believe in individual freedom and responsibility. Liberals believe in sacrificing individual freedom for socially desirable outcomes. Liberals believe that one of government's primary roles is social engineering."

"At first, by controlling the banking system we were able to control corporation capital. Through this, we acquired total monopoly of the movie industry, the radio networks and the newly developing television media. The printing industry, newspapers, periodicals and technical journals had already fallen into our hands. The richest plum was later to come when we took over the publication of all school materials. Through these vehicles we could mold public opinion to suit our own purposes. The people are only stupid pigs that grunt and squeal the chants we give them, whether they be truth or lies. There is no such thing as the silent majority because we control their cry and hue. The only thing that exists is an unthinking majority and unthinking they will remain, as long as their escape from our rigorous service is the opiate of our entertainment industry. By controlling industry, we have become the task masters and the people the slaves. When the pressure of daily toil builds to an explosive degree, we have provided the safety valve of momentary pleasure. The television and movie industries furnish the necessary temporary distraction. These programs are carefully designed to appeal to the sensuous emotions, never to the logical thinking mind. Because of this, the people are programmed to respond according to our dictates, not according to reason. Silent they never are; unthinking they will remain."

"As seen in retrospect, the first 50 years of aeronautical engineering have been dominated by one characteristic shape of the practical aeroplane on the one hand and Prandtl's boundary-layer and aerofoil theories on the other."

"No doubt one can claim that chemical engineering was practiced even by the ancient Greeks and Romans when they were making soap or wine, or treating ores in Lavrion or Sicily."