Henry Petroski
Duke University
For distinguished accomplishments and for engaging histories of bridges in the pages of American Scientist.
Quote
"I first learned of Sigma Xi through a flyer announcing a student paper competition sponsored by the Society’s chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana. I was in my fifth year as a graduate student in theoretical and applied mechanics, and my first referred-journal article had recently been accepted for publication in Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Physik. I proposed to my advisor (and co-author) that I enter the paper in the contest and he wished me luck.
My paper was selected as a finalist, which meant that I had to present it orally before an audience of strangers, something I had no experience in doing. I was naturally nervous; my wife expecting to go into labor at any time to deliver our first child, added to my anxiety. I doubt that my presentation made a very positive impression on the judges, a feeling confirmed by my third place finish in a field of three. Evidently this was still good enough for me to be inducted into Sigma Xi as a Member the following month.
I have been a proud member of Sigma Xi as I moved from academia to a national laboratory and back to the academy, ending up at Duke University, where I became affiliated with the Duke Chapter. Over the years, my research interests evolved from the highly theoretical field of mathematical continuum mechanics to the very applied field of engineering design, in which I specialized in the topic of failure. To test my hypotheses about the interrelationship between success and failure, I used historical data, which led me to develop an interest in the history of bridges. It was these topics that I spoke on as a Sigma Xi National Lecturer from 1991 to 1993. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting many Sigma Xi chapters, and marveled at the enthusiasm of members I met across the country.
In the meantime, I had begun my affiliation with American Scientist. This came about when editor-in-chief Brian Hayes visited me at Duke and asked if I might be interested in writing for the magazine. When I expressed an interest in doing so, he asked me to send him some samples of what I thought I might contribute. I sent him some chapters that had not made it into the final draft of my recently published book, The Pencil. After a while, Brian called and asked if I would like to write a regular column for American Scientist. I jumped at the opportunity.
That was back in 1990, and since then my “Engineering” column has run in every issue of the magazine, 188 in all. Throughout this time, I have had the pleasure of working with Rosalind Reid, David Schoonmaker, Fenella Saunders, and the entire staff of the magazine. I get great pleasure writing about bridges and other aspects of engineering design, and I thoroughly enjoy the feedback I receive from Sigma Xi members and readers of the magazine."
Biography
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at Duke University, where for most of his forty-year career he also held an appointment as Professor of History. His degree in mechanical engineering is from Manhattan College (1963), and his graduate degrees in theoretical and applied mechanics are from the University of Illinois at Urbana (1968), where as a graduate student he rose to the rank of Instructor. Subsequently, he became Assistant Professor of Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.
In 1975 he joined the Reactor Analysis and Safety Division of Argonne National Laboratory, where he started up and headed a new group in fracture mechanics. Although the focus of his technical work at Argonne was on problems relating to the development and operation of liquid-metal fast breeder reactors, while at the laboratory he also developed a broad interest in failure analysis and began to write about issues in technology and society for newspapers and magazines, including MIT Technology Review. In 1980, he became Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Duke, where he carried out research in fracture mechanics and failure analysis and began to write broadly on topics relating to design and failure.
To Engineer Is Human, his first book for the general reader, was published in 1985. It is an extended essay on the nature of engineering, and in particular on why most engineering designs succeed but some fail. The book was developed into a BBC television documentary, which Petroski wrote and presented, that was first broadcast in 1987. He has continued to write and lecture on the topics of success and failure in design, drawing upon historical and contemporary case studies—especially of bridges—to illustrate his theses that the concept of failure plays a central role in the engineering design process and that failures tend to follow periods of prolonged success. He extended these ideas most explicitly in his subsequent books, Design Paradigms (1994), Success through Failure (2006), and To Forgive Design (2012).
Petroski has also written about the nature of design generally and on how failure drives the evolution of all made things. He has illustrated this idea most notably in books that focus exclusively on everyday objects and systems, from paper clips to supermarkets, which he also views as engineered structures. His books in this category include The Evolution of Useful Things (1992) and Small Things Considered (2003).
His histories of particular things present their stories as extended case studies that illustrate the nature of invention, design, engineering, marketing, manufacture, and use—and the lessons that they hold for understanding the built environment and how humans interact with it. His books The Pencil (1990), The Book on the Bookshelf (1999), and The Toothpick (2007) fall into this category, as does his Engineers of Dreams (1995), which is a history of American bridge building, including many of its classic failures.
Among Petroski’s other books are Invention by Design (1996), which explores the nature of engineering across a wide variety of specialties; and Paperboy (2002), a memoir about delivering newspapers in the 1950s and about what predisposed him to become an engineer. His more recent books include The Essential Engineer (2010), about how engineering differs from science and The Road Taken (2016), which considers the history of America’s infrastructure and the implications of public policy for its future. His forthcoming book, In Touch with the Universe (2022), explores how humans interact with the natural and built environment through the medium of force.
Since 1991, Petroski has been writing the “Engineering” column in American Scientist. Selections of these columns, which range across the spectrum from success to failure and deal with designed objects and systems of all kinds, have been collected in the books Remaking the World (1997) and Pushing the Limits (2004). He also writes about the engineering profession in his “Refractions” column in ASEE Prism, the magazine of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Petroski is a Professional Engineer licensed in Texas and a Chartered Engineer registered in Ireland. He has been the principal investigator on research projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other funding entities. In 2004 he received a presidential appointment as a member of U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, on which he served until 2012.
He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Humanities Center, where he spent a sabbatical year in residence. He has appeared often on radio and television—including NPR, PBS, and commercial networks such as CBS, CNN, and CNBC—discussing matters of design, the history of and engineering and technology, and their relationship to current events, such as the failure of a building or bridge. He is interviewed frequently by the news media, and his essays have appeared on the opinion pages of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers and magazines.
Petroski’s books have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he has lectured around the world on the ideas about which he writes. His books, articles, and talks have earned him wide recognition, including six honorary degrees. Among his other honors are the Washington Award from the Western Society of Engineers, the Ralph Coats Roe Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the History and Heritage Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Walter Harding Distinguished Achievement Award in Scholarship from the Thoreau Society.
Henry Petroski is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Engineers of Ireland, and is a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.