Engineering Quotes

All of physics is either impossible or trivial. It is impossible until you understand it, and then it becomes trivial.

Genetic engineering has never been about saving the world, it's about controlling the world.

I am opposed to the laying down of rules or conditions to be observed in the construction of bridges lest the progress of improvement tomorrow might be embarrassed or shackled by recording or registering as law the prejudices or errors of today.

I don't know why I always liked aerospace engineering. I was in the 10th grade when I figured that's what I wanted to do.

I am going to design, in a great hurry, and I believe to build a station after my own fancy; that is, with engineering roofs, etc. etc. It is at Paddington, in cutting, and admitting of no exterior, all interior and all roofed in.

A lawyer’s either a social engineer or … a parasite on society … A social engineer [is] a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who [understands] the Constitution of the United States and [knows] how to explore its uses in the solving of problems of local communities and in bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens.

Science progresses best when observations force us to alter our preconceptions.

When wireless is fully applied the earth will be converted into a huge brain, capable of response in every one of its parts.

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.

Scientists investigate that which already is; Engineers create that which has never been.

There's nothing I believe in more strongly than getting young people interested in science and engineering, for a better tomorrow, for all humankind.

Strive for perfection in everything you do.

An algorithm must be seen to be believed.

I was in school studying civil engineering. A guy approached me on the street and said that I had a interesting look-very exotic. He told me I should try to be in the industry.

Protein engineering is a technology of molecular machines - of molecular machines that are part of replicators - and so it comes from an area that already raises some of the issues that nanotechnology will raise.

Experimental confirmation of a prediction is merely a measurement. An experiment disproving a prediction is a discovery.

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.

Architecture begins where engineering ends.

Take the best that exists and make it better.

The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.

Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. I’m inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. It’s so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women.

Very few people can communicate with one another. The only language that's not subject to interpretation is mathematics, chemistry, basic science, engineering principles, and applied agriculture. But other than that, many systems today are subject to interpretation.

Social engineering bypasses all technologies, including firewalls.

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

The purpose of a business is to get and keep a customer. Without customers, no amount of engineering wizardry, clever financing, or operations expertise can keep a company going.

Aeroplanes are not designed by science, but by art in spite of some pretence and humbug to the contrary. I do not mean to suggest that engineering can do without science, on the contrary, it stands on scientific foundations, but there is a big gap between scientific research and the engineering product which has to be bridged by the art of the engineer.

Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.

An osteopath is only a human engineer, who should understand all the laws governing his engine and thereby master disease.

Basically, if reverse engineering is banned, then a lot of the open source community is doomed to fail.

Business is not just doing deals; business is having great products, doing great engineering, and providing tremendous service to customers. Finally, business is a cobweb of human relationships.

I didn't finish high school, but I went to a special school for producers and musicians, a three year course for engineering, producing and learning all the tricks. So now I have my producing degree and certification.

Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped down a flight of stairs.

A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.

Atlantis was a highly evolved civilization where the sciences and arts were far more advanced than one might guess. Atlantis was technologically advanced in genetic engineering, computer science, inter-dimensional physics, and artistically developed with electronic music and crystal art forms.

The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.

Basically, if I have no intention of using a service then I won't bother reverse-engineering it.

It is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering — only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world.

To say that a man is made up of certain chemical elements is a satisfactory description only for those who intend to use him as a fertilizer.

Engineers are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their calculations, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgivable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others.

You can do reverse engineering, but you can’t do reverse hacking.

Any person or organization depends ultimately on public approval, and is therefore faced with the problem of engineering the public's consent to a program or goal.

There is no one area of chemical engineering that specifically helped me in my career as an astronaut, it was more the general education in engineering. Also, it was a very difficult and rigorous course. So, it made me strong and resourceful.

Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline.

Social engineering is using deception, manipulation and influence to convince a human who has access to a computer system to do something, like click on an attachment in an e-mail.

Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been.

Scientists at MIT and engineering schools all across America say that they could improve the fuel economy standards for the existing set of vehicles by 10 miles per gallon using existing technology, without compromising safety or comfort at all.

Indeed, the woes of Software Engineering are not due to lack of tools, or proper management, but largely due to lack of sufficient technical competence.

With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics , the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications -- systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on.

One is always a long way from solving a problem until one actually has the answer.

Science is the study of what Is, Engineering builds what Will Be. The scientist merely explores that which exists, while the engineer creates what has never existed before.