Engineering and the Mind's Eye

by Eugene S. Ferguson

In this insightful and incisive essay, Eugene Ferguson demonstrates that good engineering is as much a matter of intuition and nonverbal thinking as of equations and computation. He argues that a system of engineering education that ignores nonverbal thinking will produce engineers who are dangerously ignorant of the many ways in which the real world differs from the mathematical models constructed in academic minds.

Genres: Engineering, Nonfiction, Science, Design, History, Technology, Psychology

264 pages, Paperback

First published August 3, 1992

About the author

Eugene Shallcross Ferguson was an American engineer, historian of technology and professor of history at the University of Delaware. Ferguson obtained his BS in mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1937, and earned an MS in mechanical engineering at Iowa State College in 1955.

Reviews

[Jairo Munoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book that should be divided in two parts: one, history of the development of machinery, bridges, mechanisms, etc. This section, although a bit dry, is a great timeline of the development of engineering (civil and mechanical, for the most part).
The other part of the book, should be the one I was most interested in: the power and recognition of visual thinking. I believe this is a very important topic that is often ignored and that our educational system is not recognizing enough in the STEM fields. Emphasis of science over creative (visual) design skills is limiting the potential of many young minds.

[Pierre Franckx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being neither a scientist, nor an engineer, I don't know what my view is worth. I think one can call it a philosophical book about engineering. I'm not sure if I can follow the author's view, but for me it is a challenging one (I like to be challenged), one that keeps your mind sharp and awake. But anyway, the book contains many interesting references to other books (and marvellous pictures) that seem extremely interesting to read. A good book for a layman (like me) with an interest for science, engineering and philosophy

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It offers powerful insights into the ways in which those who create three dimensional things, notably engineers and architects, think. A convincing counter argument to the claim of some philosophers that all thought is verbal.

This book had its origins as a 1977 article in Science. Great as the ideas are, expanding them to book length was not all that successful in my view.

[Ryan Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

What's more important: engineering judgement or engineering analysis? This is the question that Ferguson considers. Excellently written, well supported, and aligns with my experience as an engineer. A worthwhile read for all engineers and similar technical-design professions.

[Andrei · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The conversion of an idea to an artifact, which engages both the designer and the maker, is a complex and subtle process that will always be far closer to art than to science."

[Yokusun Basi]

Engineering and the Mind's Eye (The MIT Press) by Eugene S Ferguson (1994)

[nuh uh · Rating 4 out of 5]

7

[Mark Bowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

A. Summary: Ferguson’s thesis in this book is that good engineering requires intuition and non-verbal thinking as much as it does theoretical, abstract equations and computation. He argues that engineering education that ignores this non-verbal style will produce an engineer who is incapable of understanding how the real world differs from a mathematical model. Ferguson traces design engineering from antiquity to the present. He ends his narrative with an example of what happens when the non-verbal, intuitive side of engineering is ignored: disasters such as the Hubble telescope and the Challenger. The problem with this book I think is that he never looks at the failure of the minds eye or practical engineering. Ex. Tay Bridge disaster and the transformation in Britian from a practical to a theoretical based engineering.
B. Preface
1. The minds eye is the nonverbal process that an engineer uses to manipulate devices in his mind
2. This book examines the significance of nonverbal thought in engineering
3. Until the mid 20th, engineers were taught how to understand engineering drawings by making them
4. They understood the nature of materials through experience
5. Since WWII engineering education has trended away from nonverbal (nonmathematical) knowledge
a) Engineering sciences are higher in status and easier to teach
b) The engineering education which ignores nonverbal learning will produce graduates who are ignorant of the way the real world differs from the mathematical world
C. The nature of engineering design
1. Two steps to design: Conversion of minds eye visions to drawings, drawings converted to finished product
2. Design is not a formal sequential process that a flowchart can capture
3. Design includes
a) Empirical observations, mental invention (prerotation of tires)
b) Design is also affected by the engineers style: Ex. Edison’s style included a rotating drum with a stylus
D. The minds eye
1. Ex. To find ones position from a map the minds eye is required to convert 2D to 3D information
2. The minds eye is in the right side of the brain: artistic, musical, and spatial ability
3. There is less of a status for this visual thinking. Thinking in words (scientific) has more prestige
E. The tools of visualization
1. These tools began in the Renaissance
2. Pictorial perspective: Allows the representation of 3D objects
3. Orthographic projection: 3 views of an object. Typically called an engineering drawing
4. Models: provide tactile and visual information
F. The computer overthrows the minds eye
1. After WWII a change occurred in engineering design education (or practice) began to loose out in favor of the more prestigious engineering science (mathematical theory).
2. The computer has replaced much of the minds eye in engineering
3. CAD programs will perform the stress testing that was once done by slide rule
4. The slide rule provided the engineer with a feel for the problem
5. In the 1980s engineering education has abandoned the graphical representations of knowledge in favor of the “more accurate” analytical (mathematical) methods
6. The paradox is that despite the belief that analytical tools will increase precision, there have been a great number of high profile engineering failures
a) Three Mile Island. A failure of judgment not calculation (solenoid valve). Hubble, Challenger

[Peter Aronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A careful and heartfelt study of the problems that occurred when math and calculations came to replace (instead of augment) personal experience and the ability to visualize in engineering. The map is not the territory, and the simulation is not reality. Reality is messy and complicated and lacks sharp limits and those things will cause you grief if you don't look out. Or, in Rudyard Kipling's words: "This new ship here, is fitted according to the reported increase of knowledge among mankind. Namely, she is cumbered, end to end, with bells and trumpets and clocks and wires which, it has been told to me, can call Voices out of the air or the waters to con the ship while her crew sleep. But sleep thou lightly, O Nakhoda! It has not yet been told to me that the Sea has ceased to be the Sea."

The warnings in this book apply to other fields than engineering -- any field, in fact, that comes into contact with that messy real world. Which is all of them.

[Carl Gauger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been one of my favorite books. It is hard to know how to write a short review of it. Suffice to say that that most essential of elements to engineering design--the ability to see what is not there--is treated fully and interestingly here. Technological innovation depends greatly on the ability to visualize and to communicate visually. Ferguson's brilliant analysis of this in history and in the particular cases he treats is both intellectually fascinating and personally insightful, or at least it was to me. If you are interested in the history of engineering and the relation of technology to culture (which I am), you will find much here to delight your mind.

[Muness Castle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engineering is not a mathematical or scientific discipline but rather one of guess work and judgment calls. This book provides an overview of how and why this is as well as a criticism of the prevailing wisdom and history of when the shift happened.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://expertisewaterandenvironmental...

[Joe Narvaez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Karla Kitalong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Chapter 7 is a pretty strident critique of engineering education, and informs usability studies as well as describing a series of engineering failures.