____________________________________________________________________ ESD.02 Essentials of Engineering Lecture Notes

History of Engineering Vannevar Bush by Prof. David A. Mindell Dr. Mindell is a professor in the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society. He also is the holder of the Frances and David Dibner Assistant Professorship of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing. After receiving the BA in literature and the BS in electrical engineering, both from Yale University, he came to MIT in 1991 for his PhD in the STS program. Dr. Mindell has also worked as an ocean engineer at the Deep Submergence Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow from 1993-95 and a graduate fellow at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology in 1995-96. His dissertation was a history of feedback control and computing from 1916-1945. For this lecture, he presented an overview of his class, The Structure of Engineering Revolutions and also spoke about how Vannevar Bush contributed to Engineering. Overview of 6.933 (History of Invention) Sucess vs. Failure Project Athena failed according to its original goals, but the goals evolved and the final goals were realized. Legitimation "A genius ahead of his time is actually only failing to convince others of value of his idea." Skill Tacit Knowledge Background Engineers tend to do what they know What do specific organizations know to do? Hetereogeneous Engineering Engineers have to do many things at once (policy, invent etc) Vannevar Bush In 1945, wrote "As We May Think," a prediction of hypertext and "Science: the Endless Frontier," the post-war blueprint for government funding of scientific research that still effects current thinking. Engineering has evolved from solving industrial problems, to becoming based in science, and now is analyzing systems.