Top 543 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Engineers - Page 2
Explore popular quotes by famous engineers.
Unix is a junk OS designed by a committee of PhDs.
[The report 'World Energy Outlook 2006'] reveals that the energy future we are facing today, based on projections of current trends, is dirty, insecure and expensive.
Willis Rodney Whitney ... once compared scientific research to a bridge being constructed by a builder who was fascinated by the construction problems involved. Basic research, he suggested, is such a bridge built wherever it strikes the builder's fancy-wherever the construction problems seem to him to be most challenging. Applied research, on the other hand, is a bridge built where people are waiting to get across the river. The challenge to the builder's ingenuity and skill, Whitney pointed out, can be as great in one case as the other.
Listen to the technology; find out what it's telling you.
The sand should be neither coarse nor fine but of a middling quality or about the size of the common pop(p)y seed. If the sand is too coarse the mortar will be short or brittle . . . If the sand is too fine the cement will shrink and crack after it has been used.
To define it rudely but not inaptly, engineering is the art of doing that well with one dollar which any bungler can do with two after a fashion.
The bottom line is there is large uncertainty because nobody has a very good handle on aerodynamics at those altitudes and at those speeds. Given that large degree of uncertainty, life could be normal during entry or some bad things could happen.
The cinema industry is competing against everything else people can do on a Friday or Saturday night. If they don't have a good time, you're going to lose them to something else. So much of what we do is trying to make the Alamo experience special.
Engineering problems are under-defined, there are many solutions, good, bad and indifferent. The art is to arrive at a good solution. This is a creative activity, involving imagination, intuition and deliberate choice.
No engineer can go upon a new work and not find something peculiar, that will demand his careful reflection, and the deliberate consideration of any advice that he may receive; and nothing so fully reveals his incapacity as a pretentious assumption of knowledge, claiming to understand everything.
Whatever we do must be in accord with human nature. We cannot drive people; we must direct their development. The general policy of the past has been to drive; but the era of force must give way to the era of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and lead, to the advantage of all concerned.
Successfully to accomplish any task it is necessary not only that you should give it the best there is in you, but that you should obtain for it the best there is in those under your guidance.
If the question were, "What ought to be the next objective in science?" my answer would be the teaching of science to the young, so that when the whole population grew up there would be a far more general background of common sense, based on a knowledge of the real meaning of the scientific method of discovering truth.
There is nothing in the programming field more despicable than an undocumented program
Managers’ typical response to my argument about free time is, ‘That’s all well and good, but there are things I have to do.’ Yet we waste so much time in unproductive activity—it takes an enormous effort on the part of the leader to keep free time for the truly important things.
We literally are all made out of stardust. We started from those stars; we are made of stardust. So, next time you are really depressed, look in the mirror and you can look and say, hi, I'm looking at a star here.
Let's get this out in the open once and for all. Here is how I feel about compression... Compression is for kids!!!!
The next big thing is the one that makes the last big thing usable.
Simplicity lies concealed in this chaos, and it is only for us to discover it.
Ethernet always wins.
The destiny of [Google's search engine] is to become that Star Trek computer, and that's what we are building.
Do you realize what we accomplished today? Today the spaceship was born.
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, one of which is the error of blaming it on the computer.
Considering how many fools can calculate, it is surprising that it should be thought either a difficult or a tedious task for any other fool to learn how to master the same tricks... Being myself a remarkably stupid fellow, I have had to unteach myself the difficulties, and now beg to present to my fellow fools the parts that are not hard. Master these thoroughly, and the rest will follow. What one fool can do, another can.
We always cherish and miss the time passed yet struglling for a better future but after moving to next level we feel the past was beautiful
I came to the conclusion long ago that limits to innovation have less to do with technology or creativity than organizational agility. Inspired individuals can only do so much.
The most important outcome of education is to help students become independent of formal education.
To talk about communication theory without communicating its real mathematical content would be like endlessly telling a man about a wonderful composer, yet never letting him hear an example of the composer's music.
Cathode-ray tubes are the most important items in a television receiver.
When the winds of adversity come, remember one thing--kites fly the very highest against the wind. Kites don't fly in spite of opposition, kites fly high because of opposition. In fact, they couldn't fly without opposition.
The creative conquest of space will serve as a wonderful substitute for war.
I shall never forget my admiration for that German pilot, who single handed, fought seven of us for ten minutes. I saw him go into a fairly steep dive and so I continued to watch, and then saw the triplane hit the ground and disappear into a thousand fragments, for it seemed to me that it literally went into powder.
Project management is the art of creating the illusion that any outcome is the result of a series of predetermined, deliberate acts when, in fact, it was dumb luck.
Cost is more important than quality but quality is the best way to reduce cost.
My vision is a future for humanity where we will be completely free to pursue activities outside of our planet.
There is no waste in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions...
The Divine flow that wants to move through me requires stillness.
If you are a garden plant you are regarded; well regarded, just as long as you stay in the garden.
The Admiralty said it was a plane and not a boat, the Royal Air Force said it was a boat and not a plane, the Army were plain not interested.
If necessity is the mother of invention, scientifically developed production is the mother of scientific research.
Elasticsearch is all about scale for us. At Foursquare, we handle tens of millions of searches across 50 million locations each day. Elasticsearch returns real-time results, which encourages more usage and deeper engagement.
Our object should not be to have scripture on our side but to be on the side of scripture; and however dear any sentiment may have become by being long entertained, so soon as it is seen to be contrary to the Bible, we must be prepared to abandon it without hesitation.
I am completely convinced that UFOs have an out-of-world basis.
Ultimately, I consider people to be more important than computers.
The enemy of stability can be complacency
Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest.
It was the sort of house that glows with substance and savoir vivre in those advertisements for the best Scotch. It had wonderful bones.
During a very busy life I have often been asked, "How did you manage to do it all?" The answer is very simple. It is because I did everything promptly.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty, most people are motivated by unconscious motives most of the time.
There is no strong evidence to prove significant human influence on climate on a global basis. The global cooling trend from 1940 to 1970 is inconsistent with models based on anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. There is no reliable evidence to support that the 20th century was the warmest in the last 1000 years.
The production of motion in the steam engine always occurs in circumstances which it is necessary to recognize, namely when the equilibrium of caloric is restored, or (to express this differently) when caloric passes from the body at one temperature to another body at a lower temperature.
Enya never writes a bad melody. That's first and foremost her secret. As she goes along, she'll start changing the dynamics, pushing here and there so that not everything is perfectly in unison. It adds a texture you can acquire only from having different voices. The variations lead to interesting quirks. It's an integral part of the Enya sound.
If you buy what you do not need, you will need what you cannot buy.
In this wonderful book Stephen Buhner shows us that the heart is not a machine but the informed, intelligent core of our emotional, spiritual, and perceptual universe. Through the heart we can perceive the living spirit that diffuses through the green world that is our natural home. Required reading for all owners of a heart.
I’m trying to tell people that I am happy the way I am. But why do people have to call my happiness a failure?
What you call freedom is still nothing but choosing how to steer straight into the heart of what chooses you.
Why do we need faith when we have the technology to move mountains?
Society asks of most men more than sheer intellect ability-it demands also moral hardiness, self-discipline, a competitive spirit and other qualities that in more old-fashioned terms we might simply call character.
Astronomy is the science of the harmony of infinite expanse.
Knowledge about the process being modeled starts fairly low, then increases as understanding is obtained and tapers off to a high value at the end.
