A Century of Innovation: Twenty Engineering Achievements That Transformed Our Lives

By George Constable and Bob Somerville

Book Overview

As the world eagerly looked forward to the dawn of a new millennium, the turning of the calendar also represented an opportunity to pause and reflect on the tremendous ingenuity and invention that marked the previous hundred years. Electricity, automobiles, telephones, radio, television, computers... these are a just a few of the innovations the decades had introduced -- all compliments of the world's engineers.

Celebrating a century of innovation, the National Academy of Engineering and a consortium of professional engineering societies present the most significant engineering triumphs of the era. While the achievements encompass many dramatic and highly visible engineering feats, from the first flight at Kitty Hawk to the birth of the Internet, the lineup is largely composed of more commonplace advances that had a truly profound and widespread effect on all of society. Indeed, most of the achievements profiled in this book are so much a part of our lives that we have come to take them for granted. But to learn the stories behind these great achievements is to behold and appreciate them anew.

Topping the list is electrification. More than half of the "Top 20" would not have been possible without it. Abundant and available electric power helped spur America's economic development and distributed benefits widely, from cities to farms. This achievement clearly shines as an example of how engineering has changed the world.

But often we take the likes of air conditioning and refrigeration for granted even though they have significantly improved our sense of comfort and contributed to our physical health, giving us the ability to transport and extend the shelf life of food. Radio and television are so much more than mere entertainment devices. Indeed, they have changed the way we view the world and our place in it. The telephone has made the whole planet a smaller but much more connected place for all of us. And underlying and enabling many of these technologies is the computer -- from room-sized super computers to palm-sized devices.

Each chapter tells the life story of a specific engineering achievement. Each chapter also features a personal reflection by a notable engineer involved with the achievement. Among them: Bill Gates, who brought the personal computer into our home; Charles Townes, inventor of the laser; Robert Kahn, one of the originators of the Internet; Bill Anders, the Apollo 8 astronaut who took the famous "Earthrise" photograph while in lunar orbit; and Wilson Greatbatch, inventor of the pacemaker. The engineers' commentaries capture the excitement, imagination, vision, and tenacity that ultimately made each achievement a reality. Timelines trace the evolution of the achievements while dramatic illustrations depict how things actually work. Replete with photographs and drawings, the drama of invention and discovery is brought vividly to life.

More than a simple tally of engineering achievements, A Century of Innovation is proof positive that the genius and the talent of the world's engineers have truly transformed the way people live.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0309089085
• ISBN13: 9780309089081
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Joseph Henry Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 4.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 9.5" x 11.5"

Customer Reviews

The stories behind the technologies of modern life

This is the story of the most remarkable improvement in living conditions in the history of mankind, which occurred during the 20th Century. The achievements discussed are: Electrification Automobile Airplane Water supply and distribution Electronics Radio and television Agricultural mechanization Computers Telephony Air conditioning and refrigeration Highways Spacecraft Internet Imaging Household appliances Health technologies Petroleum and Petrochemical industries Lasers and fiber optics Nuclear technologies High performance materials Each accomplishment is presented in narrative form with interesting insights. For example: *Farm machinery reduced the labor to produce 100 bushels of corn from 35 to 40 hours in 1900 to 2 hours 45 minutes in 1999. *The physics behind the invention of the laser was based on a 1917 paper by Albert Einstein that proposed that an atom properly excited by external energy would produce a photon equal in frequency and direction to an existing photon. *Fiber optics required glass with essentially zero impurities. *Before paved roads fruit could be shipped across the country by railroad cheaper than transporting it 15 miles by horse drawn wagon. *The introduction of chlorinated water in the first decades of the 20th Century led to a dramatic decline in deaths from cholera, typhoid and dysentery. Each achievement also has a timeline of key developments, typically written over some type of illustration such as a process diagram. This is a non-technical book; however, as an engineer myself I believe that it does an excellent job of explaining the accomplishments. This is a very well organized and written book and is beautifully illustrated. The large "coffee table" format with expensive paper and printing puts it out of the popular price range. I believe that a scaled down edition would make an excellent textbook, which I consider to be essential reading for many fields, such as economics or first year engineering students. I bought this book because I am an amateur economist doing research on 20th Century productivity, for which I found much valuable information, plus a very interesting read. One thing I found disappointing was the lack of references, which is surprising because this book was the product of a joint effort of various professional engineering, science and technology societies coordinated by National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences. Footnotes for the not so well known details from corporate archives and such would have been tremendously helpful to researchers and historians.