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| Engineering
Failures? |  |
Type of Engineering involved:
Chemical
Do you worry about failure? Of course you do. When engineers talk about
failure they're not necessarily talking about failing a test or failing a course.
They're probably talking about what happens when something they've built or designed
or analyzed doesn't work. Engineering failure can mean that a computer program
doesn't work properly, but it can also mean that a bridge collapses or a power
plant shuts down or a satellite spins out of its orbit. Engineering failures may
not happen often, but when they do there is often a loss of life, and there is
always a huge cost. Engineers study failures in depth so that they can understand
what went wrong and avoid recreating the same problem. In engineering, as in life,
there are valuable lessons to be learned from failure.
Sometimes failures
aren't as bad as they first appear - especially during research. In fact, several
really useful things wouldn't exist if someone hadn't failed at something else
first! | | | Back
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|
 | Spence
Silver, the chemical engineer who developed the reusable, weak glue on Post-It
Notes, was actually trying to make a stronger glue for tape. He thought he had
failed until one of the other engineers in the lab realized what this new glue
was good for. | | | |
| The
problem was just the opposite for Leo Baeckeland. He was trying to find a synthetic
substitute for varnish (a substance which protects wooden furniture and floors),
but what he produced was too tough. He made the substance even tougher and ended
up developing one of the world's first moldable dyed plastics. |
| | | | Another
chemical engineer, James Wright, was trying to create a rubber substitute out
of silicon. What he ended up with was just way too gooey and bouncy to be used
for anything practical, so he put it aside. Five years later, someone else put
the bouncy goo in an egg and sold it as "Silly Putty." | |
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