Category Archives: Philosophy of Engineering

There seems to be a progression of understanding as one designs structures. At first, as college students, we have well defined analytical techniques that appear objective and clear (there is truth). Later we learn this idea of structural design is … Continue reading →

Engineers have to straddle many worlds.  We may find ourselves one day designing steel connections, then meeting on a new job to discuss appropriate structural systems, then doing some BIM modeling.   As we grow into project managers we may find … Continue reading →

I woke up at 3am today again.  It was the same dream, or similar dream to what I have been having over the last decade.   I forgot to check something.  I missed something in the code or I missed something … Continue reading →

We were designing and building things long before we had a “scientific” methods and mathematical solution techniques – and we still do today.  We can actually do engineering without science (Pantheon is an example), but science does indeed help and is … Continue reading →

Thanks code writers!  You hit it out of the park this time!   A new load code that increased the thickness a half inch from 388 pages to 608 pages.  Way to go! See http://structuresworkshop.com/blog/2011/10/16/9-improve-the-codes/

The New York Times published a bunch of wonderfully funny “doodles” by the artist David Shrigley.   Here is one of them: ‘‘I’m not trying to draw badly,’’ says Shrigley, who graduated from the Glasgow School of Art. ‘‘I’m just trying … Continue reading →

Newton’s Third Law We think of this as F = F, or “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, but Newton expressed this differently than the way we learned this in school.   In his work Philosophiæ Naturalis … Continue reading →