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Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand 12

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"Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" both by Ayn Rand, should be required reading for all engineers.

My Economics Professor recommended both to me years ago - I am indebted forever. He also told me to read the "Tao Teh Ching" frequently, which I do.

These three literary works have help me improve myself which in turn helps me get ahead in my work.

Can anyone recommend other great reads to help achieve these ends?

Thanks.
 
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Read and practice the suggestions in the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People." by Dale Carnegie.

I would rather stick needles in eyes than suggest to someone to read anything by Ayn Rand. Brrr!@!
 
Sounds like a lot of you should take a moment and read something meaningless, like Maxim or Cosmo...(jk)

But since we're on the subject: Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis

I'm an engineer who is also an avid baseball fan. This book provides fantastic examples of "thinking outside the box". It primarily provides statistical and economic insight into everyday decision-making...and it talks a little baseball, too.
 
A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown
by Robert Baker (Editor)

A collection of short essays on a variety of topics. Some are amusing, some are not.

I find the essay regarding the degeneration of the English Language via phnoetic spelling the best of the bunch.
 
MintJulep,

Degeneration of the English language may bother many of us, but culmsy tpying on conputers is a biggger thraet. [wink]


STF
 
No Highway- Nevil Shute (The Beach, A Town Like Alice.)

Henry Petroski talks about this book in his book "To Engineer is Human."

The Bible.


Clyde
 
Although not exactly an engineering book, "Human Action" by Ludwig Von Mises is closely related to "Atlas Shrugged" in thinking and length.
 
Bill Rees, Waking the Sleepwalkers.

Rees reasons that trying to "fix" the environment is a useless treatment of a symptom. He's done the math, and demonstrates very convincingly that western society is not sustainable.

For example, there are 12 billion hectares of "useful" land on the planet, and 6 billion humans. That's 2 hectares per person. We north americans currently use about 12 hectare's worth of resources each, when all the food, lumber, and energy are added up. That leaves less than the fair share for everyone else.


STF
 
The following may not get you ahead in your work, but they are of interest to civil/structural engineers:

Bridges and Their Builders, by David Steinman
Man the Maker, A History of Technology and Engineering, by Robert Forbes

Three books by David McCullough:
The Great Bridge (The Brooklyn Bridge)
The Johnstown Flood
The Path Between the Seas (The Panama Canal)
 
My favorite Neville Shute novel is "Trustee from the Toolroom". It illustrates the respect for excellence of the engineering mindset, and the strength of a man who is happy and confident in his field.
Those who liked Sun Tzu's ideas may appreciate Karl von Clausewitz' "On War".
 
I agree with Scoobystu and Jboucher50:

Murphy's laws applies in the most opportune times. Since I have Murphy's in my family, we had O'Tool's Axiom:

It quite simply states:

"Murphy was an optimist"

I have read some profound works from various authors as well.

I found two books by Dale Carnegie to be helpful:

"How to win friends and influence people"
"How to Stop worrying and start living"

I also enjoy cartoons like the Far Side, Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert in getting out of the Murphy(O'Tool's) and sometimes engineer rut. [upsidedown]
 
I found a poem the other day that struck me as inspiring. Well, from the eyes of an engineer. :) I showed it to a few co-workers, but to my disappointment, did not receive the best reviews. "Blah! I became an engineer to avoid english class!". Ha ha! Perhaps this crowd will be more appreciative. I know I read it whenever I need a quick moral boost at work.

Enjoy

~Patrick Mc G.

Mechanophilus
(in the time of the first railways)

Now first we stand and understand,
And sunder false from true,
And handle boldly with the hand,
And see and shape and do.

Dash back that ocean with a pier,
Strow yonder mountain flat,
A railway there, a tunnel here,
Mix me this Zone with that!

Bring me my horse - my horse? my wings
That I may soar the sky,
For Thought into the outward springs,
I find her with the eye.

O will she, moonlike, sway the main,
And bring or chase the storm,
Who was a shadow in the in the brain,
And is a living form?

Far as the Future vaults her skies,
From this my vantage ground
To those still-working energies
I spy nor term nor bound.

As we surpass our father's skill,
Our sons will shame our own;
A thousand things are hidden still
And not a hundred known.

And had some prophet spoken true
Of all we shall achieve,
The wonders were so wildly new,
That no man would believe.

Meanwhile, my brothers, work, and wield
The forces of to-day,
And plow the Present like a field,
And gerner all you may!

You, what the cultured surface grows,
Dispense with careful hands:
Deep under deep for ever goes,
Heaven over Heaven expands.

Alfred Lord Tennyson
-first published 1892
 
As inspiring as Ulysses, I really should get a Tennyson collection.

For more humourous poetry, does anybody recall a poem called "The Aircraft Engineer's Prayer"? It begins:

Wrinkle, wrinkle, little spar,
How I wonder how stiff you are...


STF
 
eureka has mention a book by David McCullough
The Path Between the Seas (The Panama Canal)

There is a person in the book I consider to be an engineer’s
engineer.
John Stevens The original Chief Engineer on the Canal.
Stevens wrote a paper "To the Young Engineers Who Must Carry On"
Stevens wrote: The great works had still to come "I believe that we are but children picking up pebbles on the shore of the boundless ocean”.

A most interesting man.
 
The soul of a new machine -excellent computer engineering - great intro
Zen and the Art of MC maintenance - poor engineering - great philosophy
making of the atomic bomb - excellent
Atlas Shrugged - improbable plot - melodrama but an interesting theme/idea
fountainhead - more of the same - upity view of FLWright and architecture
Mythical Man Month - construction of the IBM 360 OS- great project management story
Trustee from the Tool Room - a little bit of this in every engineer
Undaunted Courage - Lewis and Clark - Actually a lot of engineering approaches to the expedition and not all sucessfull
Anything having to do with the Apollo program
 
In defense of Ayn Rand, her book,"Writing Non-Fiction" was helpful. I needed to hear her admonitions about working on non-fiction.

Engineers may find it illuminating to read Dornberger's "V2." Yes, he was a German general during WWII, and he contributed to developing the V2, but a study of the technical accomplishments done under wartime circumstances would be eye-opening. His team developed:

- swirl vaporization of combustion fuel, still being used in modern jet engines;

- film cooling of combustors;

- acceleration feedback in steering commands. This has been used in power steering;

- high speed aero stability;

- Schlieren visualization of supersonic flow, and many other technical developments.
 
This subject brings to mind one of the greatest books of the last century, Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon. Or one of the worst books of the last century depending on who you ask. Amazingly technical, complex, and inaccessable, I'm not sure I can recommend it because its also obscene. If you're into the X-Files stuff, you might take a look or maybe try the much shorter (and much easier to read) The Crying Of Lot 49.
 
My top five:

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

A Human Strategy by Matt Berry

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger



 
If you liked Persigs "Zen and the art", you'll also like his "Lila". Recomended.

"Aramis: or the love of Technology" by Bruno Latour (translation Catherine Porter) is a fairly challenging wade, but rewarding. Follows a (failed) French project to develop robotic rail personal transport systems.

Dr. Leon Lederman's "The God Particle" is worthwhile for amateur students of physics. Also any of the new books challenging quantum theory (look for Shroedingers Cat in titles).

On Ayn Rand, I liked that too when I was young and invincible. You'll get over it, everybody does. On management v.s. engineering see above re: Jack Welsh. Anyone wishing to write a new book should explore this area. Ditto "Irreconcilable Differences: Rosss Perot v.s. General Motors" by Doron P. Levin gives a good insight into what it takes to {ex}ceed.

Warning. Don't inquire past Rand if you want to "make it" in management. Much of the purpose of the busywork assigned to management trainees is to make sure you don't get into philisophy.

 
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