About the Book

$26.95 US
$33.00 CAN
From the acclaimed author of The Pencil and To Engineer is Human, The Essential Engineer is an eye-opening exploration of the ways in which science and engineering must work together to address our world's most pressing issues, from dealing with climate change and the prevention of natural disasters to the development of efficient automobiles and the search for renewable energy sources. While the scientist may identify problems, it falls to the engineer to solve them. It is this inherent practicality of engineering, which takes into account structural, economic, environmental, and other factors that science often does not consider, that makes engineering vital to answering our most urgent concerns.
Henry Petroski takes us inside the research, development, and debates around the most critical challenges of our time, exploring the feasibility of biofuels, the progress of battery-operated cars, and the question of nuclear power. He gives us an in-depth investigation of the various options for renewable energy--among them solar, wind, tidal, and ethanol--explaining the benefits and risks of each. Will windmills soon populate our landscape the way they did in previous centuries? Will synthetic trees,, said to be more efficient at absorbing harmful CO2 than real trees, soon dot our prairies? Will we construct a "sunshade" in outer space to protect ourselves from dangerous rays? In many cases, the technology already exists, and what's needed is not so much invention as engineering.
Just as the great achievements of centuries past--the steamship, the airplane, the moon landing--once seemed beyond reach, the solutions of the 21st century's problems await only a similar coordination of science and engineering. Eloquently reasoned and written, The Essential Engineer identifies and illuminates these problems--and above all sets out a course for putting ideas into action.
Insert author photo] Catherine Petroski
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. The author of more than a dozen previous books, he lives in Durham, North Carolina, and Arrowsic, Maine.
With 12 illustrations in text
Jacket design by Chip Kidd
Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York
2/2010

Product Details

Media: Hardcover Book, 274 pages

Language: English

Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group (Feb. 28th, 2010)

ISBN-10: 0307272451

ISBN-13: 9780307272454

Dimensions: 6.60 x 9.72 x 1.06 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.32 lbs

• Categories: Scientific Essays