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Interviews | June 19, 2009

Dave: IMG Jim Lynch Makes Landscape Art... Out of Text



jimlynchIf Carl Hiaasen set one of his novels on a residential stretch of boundary line between British Columbia and Washington, or if Richard Russo's characters had relatives in the Pacific Northwest, the result might be something like Jim Lynch's Border Songs. Continue »
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1 Hawthorne Science Reference- General


This title in other formats:

Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering

by Henry Petroski

Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering Cover

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:


Here are two dozen tales in the grand adventure of engineering from the Henry Petroski, who has been called America's poet laureate of technology. Pushing the Limits celebrates some of the largest things we have created-bridges, dams, buildings: and provides a startling new vision of engineering's past, its present, and its future. Along the way it highlights our greatest successes, like London's Tower Bridge; our most ambitious projects, like China's Three Gorges Dam; our most embarrassing moments, like the wobbly Millennium Bridge in London; and our greatest failures, like the collapse of the twin towers on September 11. Throughout, Petroski provides fascinating and provocative insights into the world of technology with his trademark erudition and enthusiasm for the subject.

Review:

"A fascinating potpourri of history, engineering, and imagination, all presented in the fluid, humane writing style that we have come to expect from this author." --The Washington Post Book World

"A pleasure. . . . It is a measure of Mr. Petroski's skill and sensibility that his essays about structures made of steel and stone so frequently provide a sense of that large humanity, as well." --New York Sun

“He writes clearly about complicated subjects, and provides lucid explanations and penetrating insights.” —The New York Review of Books

"Henry Petroski turns an expert eye on the technology--and economics and vanity--behind [building]. The most compelling chapters concern disasters, from the collapse to the World Trade Center to the whip-snapping death of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. These essays are elegantly written and consistently thought-provoking." --New Scientist

"Henry Petroski has become the main emissary from the world of engineering to the rest of us. . . . He brings clarity and good sense to his subject, making the enigmatic world of things a little less mystifying." --Austin American-Statesman

"Petroski writes . . . with the observant eye of an engineer and the imaginative heart of a novelist." --Los Angeles Times

"An unlikely combination of mathematical brain power and a more irrational curiosity. . . . Petroski not only can put science in laymen's terms, but also can do so without killing its magic." --The Christian Science Monitor

"Petroski . . . asks us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary." --Chicago Tribune

"[There is] pleasure [in] seeing Henry Petroski's playful mind at work." --Scientific American

About the Author

Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. The author of eleven previous books, he lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Preface

BRIDGES

Art in Iron and Steel

Bridges of America

Benjamin Franklin Bridge

Floating Bridges

Confederation Bridge

Pont de Normandie

Britannia Bridge

Tower Bridge

Drawing Bridges

An Eye-Opening Bridge

Millennium Legacies

Broken Bridges

New and Future Bridges

AND OTHER THINGS

Dorton Arena

Bilbao

Santiago Calatrava

Fazlur Khan

The Fall of Skyscrapers

Vanities of the Bonfire

St. Francis Dam

Three Gorges Dam

Fuel Cells

Engineers’ Dreams

Engineers’ Achievements

Acknowledgments and Bibliography

List of Illustrations and Credits

Index

Product Details

ISBN:
9781400032945
Subtitle:
New Adventures in Engineering
Author:
Petroski, Henry
Publisher:
Vintage Books USA
Subject:
History
Subject:
Engineering - General
Subject:
Engineering
Subject:
Applied Sciences
Subject:
Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings
Subject:
Buildings - Public, Commercial & Industrial
Subject:
Engineering -- History.
Copyright:
Publication Date:
September 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
288
Dimensions:
7.96x5.26x.65 in. .61 lbs.

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