What Engineers Know and How They Know It

What Engineers Know and How They Know It

Cover of 1 ed edition, paperback
Author	Walter G. Vincenti
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	History of technology, Aeronautical history
Publisher	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date	1990
Media type	Paperback
Pages	326
ISBN	(a1k. paper) 0-8018-4588-2 (pbk.)

What Engineers Know and How they Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990) () is a historical reflection on engineering practice in US aeronautics from 1908 to 1953 written by an accomplished practitioner and instructor. This period represents the dawn of aviation which was fraught with uncertainties and numerous paths to many possible worlds. The book captures two main conclusions from this period. The first order conclusion of this book is about "what engineers know." Five case studies from the history of aeronautical engineering are used to argue engineering often demands its own scientific discoveries. Thus, engineering should be understood as a knowledge-generating activity that includes applied science but is not limited to applied science. The second order conclusion of this book pertains to "how engineers know" by using the same case studies to reveal patterns in the nature of all engineering. These patterns form an “epistemology” of engineering that may point the way to an “engineering method” as something distinct from scientific method. Walter Vincenti ends the work with a general "variation-selection model" for understanding the direction of technological innovation in human history. The book is filled with numerous additional observations and stories told by a practitioner and instructor. This may be why Dr. Michael A. Jackson, author of Structured Design and Problem Frames, once concluded a keynote address to engineers with the statement, "Read Vincenti's book. Read it carefully. Read it one hundred times."

Walter G. Vincenti (commonly pronounced "vin-sen-tee" in the US or "vin-chen-tee" in Italian) (1917–present) is a Professor Emeritus of Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering at Stanford University. In 1987 he was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, “for pioneering contributions to supersonic aircraft aerodynamics and to fundamental understanding of the physical gas dynamics of hypersonic flow.” His important textbook from the first part of his career is, Introduction to Physical Gas Dynamics (1ed ed 1965, 2nd ed 1975). Vincenti in effect had two whole careers: one as a cutting-edge aeronautical engineer and another as a leading historian of technology. This gave him a dual vantage point to think about how technological innovation works. Further, he broadened the relevance of engineering to society by co-founding a Stanford discipline called Values, Technology and Society in 1971—now called Science, Technology and Society. At the age of 90 he published his most recent work with William M. Newman, "On an Engineering Use of Engineering History" which appears in Technology and Culture.