Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering - Hardcover

Petroski, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400040515 ISBN 13: 9781400040513

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2004

Synopsis

In a new collection of incisive essays, the author of The Evolution of Useful Things offers a close-up look at a variety of major projects that set the stage for bold new challenges in engineering, art, and architecture, assessing the achievements and risks associated with pushing the limits of technology, including the collapse of the Twin Towers on September 11th.

About this title

Review:

"A fascinating potpourri of history, engineering, and imagination, all presented in the fluid, humane writing style that we have come to expect from this author." --The Washington Post Book World

"A pleasure. . . . It is a measure of Mr. Petroski's skill and sensibility that his essays about structures made of steel and stone so frequently provide a sense of that large humanity, as well." --New York Sun

"He writes clearly about complicated subjects, and provides lucid explanations and penetrating insights." --The New York Review of Books

"Henry Petroski turns an expert eye on the technology--and economics and vanity--behind [building]. The most compelling chapters concern disasters, from the collapse to the World Trade Center to the whip-snapping death of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. These essays are elegantly written and consistently thought-provoking." --New Scientist

"Henry Petroski has become the main emissary from the world of engineering to the rest of us. . . . He brings clarity and good sense to his subject, making the enigmatic world of things a little less mystifying." --Austin American-Statesman

"Petroski writes . . . with the observant eye of an engineer and the imaginative heart of a novelist." --Los Angeles Times

"An unlikely combination of mathematical brain power and a more irrational curiosity. . . . Petroski not only can put science in laymen's terms, but also can do so without killing its magic." --The Christian Science Monitor

"Petroski . . . asks us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary." --Chicago Tribune

"[There is] pleasure [in] seeing Henry Petroski's playful mind at work." --Scientific American

About the Author:

Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. The author of eleven previous books, he lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Henry Petroski’s The Book on the Bookshelf, Engineers of Dreams, The Evolution of Useful Things, Paperboy, Remaking the World, Small Things Considered, and To Engineer Is Human are available in Vintage paperback.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1400040515
• ISBN 13: 9781400040513
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288