The best engineer
The best engineer
2
Kevin_Hall (Aerospace)
(OP)
A long time ago one of my teachers told me:"To become a great engineer you should not know everything, you should know where to find everything" and I think that this statement is undisputed.
What do you think of it?
What do you think of it?
RE: The best engineer
xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
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RE: The best engineer
There's a balance--things you know; things you can find; things you know that you don't know
RE: The best engineer
Henry Ford was once asked if he thought of himself as a smart man. He said he did. They then asked him what the square root of some large number was. His response: I do not know. If I wanted to know, I would find somebody that did know and they would tell me. Then, I would know.
We know what we know, but we have to acknowledge what we do not know. That is when we need to know how to find the answer.
As an engineer, I do not commit the endless formulas for my tasks to memory. I know which books contain them on my bookshelf, when I need to look them up.
RE: The best engineer
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
Fixed it.
There's another that's a bit better IMHO, something to the effect of "Good engineering isnt finding a formula in a book, its finding the correct answer from experience." I've heard it called consultant's cliche but is true of all desk jockeys - without testing experience you dont realize how wrong you are.
RE: The best engineer
https://sites.google.com/site/philledwardsauthor/f...
Calculus would be painful if you had to look up the methods and solutions every time.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: The best engineer
Not for me. I've never once had to use it in 45 years of engineering practice with hundreds of successful machines and several patents under my belt. I understand that it was a critical tool in the original development of the formulas and equations that I use, but it has never been a factor in my work.
Thank God!!!!
RE: The best engineer
Occasionally we in Aero, have new or about-to-be-graduate-level students... and sometimes 'struggling' working engineers... asking for 'best technical tools and resources and [?] how to get-ahead in their jobs and in our line-of-work.' [my paraphrase]
Here is a typical question recently posed to us... and our somewhat 'different' perspective to this guy...
https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=489875
best tools - more used (useful) tools
Hello everyone, My name is Gibran and I'm Aerospace Engineering student. My question is: what is the most useful tools (software, methodology and etc) to start to project aircrafts.
And what the job market wants in a engineer.
Most of us older guys, realize that honestly earning an engineering degree means 'you're smart enough to do the work and adapt' to new/changing/evolving tools and methods. Engineering is the easy part... get into the 'flow-and-go'. However...
Replies in this thread from some of us 'older engineers' had some serious/philosophical observations/recommendations from the most-important human-factors perspective.
Regards, Wil Taylor
o Trust - But Verify!
o We believe to be true what we prefer to be true. [Unknown]
o For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible. [variation,Stuart Chase]
o Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant. ["Orion", Homebuiltairplanes.com forum]
RE: The best engineer
thread16-489875: best tools - more used (useful) tools
I inserted a space in that first thread ID to stop the SW from doing its thing
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: The best engineer
Regards, Wil Taylor
o Trust - But Verify!
o We believe to be true what we prefer to be true. [Unknown]
o For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible. [variation,Stuart Chase]
o Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant. ["Orion", Homebuiltairplanes.com forum]
RE: The best engineer
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: The best engineer
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: The best engineer
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
I tend to find bumper sticker length sayings have a lot of holes in them once you start really thinking about them. Here are some for this topic.
-I only need to know where to find the answer? I would think you would need to add to that the ability to read, comprehend and apply the information once you know where to look. But if all I need to be a good engineer is where it is at, I guess that is easier. Just a game of information hide-and-seek.
-The person who gave this advice, I bet they had to live and work by this concept. Were they a "great engineer"?
-"you should not know everything" is kind of poor advice. If someone was capable of knowing everything or even knowing a lot, we are advising them to stop and change to just knowing where to look?
-Where do you look when you have all the data and information, but you must now make some kind of decision, or create something new?
-A person with the best database on where information is kept but does not know what F=ma means, is the world's greatest engineer. Damn that Dewey Decimal system. It has always been my downfall.
-I bet people will dispute what undisputed means? Does it mean no one has ever disputed this statement? Does it means that all disputes were found to be baseless?
Here's another saying I think is undisputed. "There are 3 kinds of people in this world. Those that can count and those that can't."
RE: The best engineer
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: The best engineer
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: The best engineer
RE: The best engineer
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: The best engineer
The intent of the quote is sound. Just because you do not know everything, does not mean you know nothing. People taking the message of this saying as "you don't have to know anything" are the people that may not get any real work done because they spend so much time twisting and contorting anything and everything just to prove what an innovative thinker they are.
You don' have to know everything, but you should know where to find this information. I do not have the formula memorized, but I know how to find the formula, I know how to define the variables and I know how to solve the equation once I set it up.
That is the intent of the message.
Stop over thinking it.