Invention by Design: How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing

Engineering entails more than knowing how things work. Whatdo economics and ecology, aesthetics and ethics, have to do with the shape of a paper clip, the tab of a beverage can, the cabin designofa turbojet, or the course of a river? How do the idiosyncrasies of individual engineers, companies and communities leave their mark on projects such as Velcro, fax machines, and waterworks? Invention by Design offers aninsiders lookat these political and cultural dimensions of design, development, and production, and reaffirms Petroski as the masterexplicator of the principles and processes that turn thoughts into themany things that define our material world.