engineering

What Engineers Know and How They Know It

What Engineers Know and How They Know It is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand What Engineers Know and How They Know It rather than just read about it. In short: 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 Walter Vincenti (1917–2019) an accomplished practitioner and instructor. This period represents the dawn of aviation which was fraught with uncertainties and numerous paths to many possible w…

Key takeaways

What Engineers Know and How They Know It belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect What Engineers Know and How They Know It to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of What Engineers Know and How They Know It from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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 Walter Vincenti (1917–2019) 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."

Author

Walter G. Vincenti (commonly pronounced "vin-sen-tee" in the US or "vin-chen-tee" in Italian) (1917–2019) was 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.

Background What Engineers Know was first published in 1990 when Mr. Vincenti was 73 years old after full careers in aerospace engineering, the history of technology, and instructing. The five case studies used for evidence in this book come from the first half of the 20th century, 1908–1953. During this period the author worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) from 1940 to 1957. Four of the five case studies used as evidence in this book were first published independently in Technology and Culture between 1979 and 1986. During this era, other authors were beginning to refute the view of engineering as only applied science. Then in 1990, Vincenti's five case studies indirectly supported this newer discourse about engineering as a knowledge-generating discipline.

Scope The profession of "engineering" encompasses a wide scope of practice. Thus, the author narrows the scope of his five case studies in three ways. First, viewed end-to-end, the engineering process contains three phases including design, construction/production and operation. These cases come largely from the design phase of engineering. One exception is the fifth case study on flush-riveted joints which involved an intimate interplay between design and production. Second, design can be categorized as normal or radical. These case studies pertain to normal design. Third, normal design itself is multi-leveled. These levels proceed from project definition down to overall design, major component design, subdivision of component design, and highly specific problems (like planform, airfoil and high-lift devices). These five case studies come mostly from these lower levels. Thus when combined, the scope of these case studies is design, normal design and highly specific problems at the lowest level, "to help redress the neglect of this large and essential area."

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with What Engineers Know and How They Know It

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what What Engineers Know and How They Know It claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to What Engineers Know and How They Know It before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about What Engineers Know and How They Know It ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of What Engineers Know and How They Know It

In research: What Engineers Know and How They Know It appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses What Engineers Know and How They Know It in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: What Engineers Know and How They Know It is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1990 non-fiction books, Aviation books, Engineering books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for What Engineers Know and How They Know It outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study What Engineers Know and How They Know It in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what What Engineers Know and How They Know It means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain What Engineers Know and How They Know It out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is What Engineers Know and How They Know It in simple terms?

Why does What Engineers Know and How They Know It matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study What Engineers Know and How They Know It?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on What Engineers Know and How They Know It.