One of the first books I ever bought, The Guinness Book of World Records - 1992 edition, is still, in my mind, the most informative and entertaining among those that sit on my book shelves.  Where else can one turn to when they want to know the height of the tallest person (8' 11", Robert Waldo), the maximum combined length of finger nails on one hand (181 inches, Shridhar Chillal), and the maximum g-force experienced by any bird (10g's, when the red-headed woodpecker strikes a tree)?

Well, I suppose one could turn to Google, but performing such searches would be much more arduous.  Also, no one would even think to search for most of the endeavours described in the Guinness Book.  In fact, much of the fun in flipping through this record book is had by marveling at some of the most bizarre records it contains, such as the longest leapfrogged distance (888.1 miles by 14 members of a high school class during a 189-hour and 49-minute span).   

From business to the arts, science to sports, anything that has a maximum or minimum is likely captured within those 833 pages.  And, I would go so far as to say that The Guinness Book of World Records is a vital tool for all engineers.  Let me explain...

The typical engineer has a wide set of skills associated with solving complex problems, including a strong background in math and science.  Of all of the skills that an engineer possesses, the most indispensable one is probably common sense.  A healthy dose of common sense allows one to arrive at the starting point of a design quickly, because one may easily separate the feasible options from the unfeasible ones.  Good judgement also allows one to look at the parameters of a design, such as function, mass, volume, and loading environment, as well as the parameters of a project, such as budget and schedule, and assess whether or not, as a set, they appear reasonable.  This is essential when engineering firms are bidding on projects.

What does any of this have to do with a book about world records?  Well, as one leafs through the pages filled with records, one gets a sense of the extreme values of just about anything known to man.  In doing so, one cannot help but develop one's ability to reason.

As I read about the largest pancake ever made (32 feet 11 inches in diameter, 2,866 lbs, Netherlands in 1990), I began to imagine the size of it.  Its diameter was about equivalent to the height above the water of the highest diving board at an Olympic pool.  Its weight was that of roughly twenty people.  Just imagine the difficulty involved in flipping this breakfast beast (yes, it was flipped!).

The largest cockroach ever measured (3.81 inches long by 1.77 inches across) has its origins in Colombia (no, not Manhattan).  Of course, that is small compared to the largest spider (10.5 inch leg span), which is actually called the goliath bird-eating spider, and can weigh more than 4 ounces.  I suppose I would rather not try to imagine one of these.

The point is that whether we are talking about pancakes or arachnids, the Guinness Book of World Records demands that we develop our ability to quantify measurements, in these cases, of length and mass.  Developing a feel for size and weight is critical for any engineer involved in mechanical design.  A strong intuition for what these units of measurement represent is perhaps more important today than ever before, due to the exponential increase in the automation of our tools.

When a simulation program spits out a value for the mass of a bicycle that you are designing virtually, it should strike you as odd if that value is five grams.  This should prompt you to check the density value that you entered for the Aluminium.  Chances are that you input a numerical density value in units of kilograms per meter cubed, when the software assumes units of grams per meter cubed.  If such an oversight were not caught, the stresses computed when the bicycle is vibrated virtually would be low by a factor of one thousand.

An engineer with a strong feeling for units would never accept that a bicycle could be five grams, because this is the mass of the sugar that is in their bowl of cereal.  In short, an engineer should have a sense of the appropriate order of magnitude for just about any measured value of just about any object.  Consuming a book of records forces the reader to develop this sense.

A book of records also serves as an excellent educational tool.  Want a deeper appreciation for history?  Look up the first ever industry (chopping tools, 2.5 million years ago, Ethiopia) or the first ever controlled and sustained aircraft flight (1903, Orville Wright).  One can also brush up on one's geography of our planet.  You probably already knew that water cover 71% of the surface of the Earth, but did you know that this water constitutes 0.022% of the planet's mass?

The book does have one weakness: it ages.  In general, the book ages well, though.  All records that I have listed above come directly from my original 1992 edition.  While some of them may have been broken in the ensuing twenty years, I am certain that none of those that I listed have been shattered.  If someone decided to grow out the fingernails on one of their hands to a combined length of 200 inches, exceeding the previous record by 19 inches, all the power to him (although I pity his spouse).  A record that is broken in this way does not dramatically alter my perception of what constitutes 'long' nails.

The areas in which an up to date edition would differ drastically from a dated edition are in economics and technology.  For example, the most money spent on a TV commercial, as reported in my 1992 edition, is $800,000 US for a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl of the previous year.  In 2012, that same air time costs $3.5 million.

In 1992, the fastest computer in the world had a capacity of 32 million bytes of main memory, or, one thousandth of the storage capacity of a USB key that is now available for less than twenty bucks at a nearby gas station.

If a quick read through any edition of The Guinness Book of World Records will develop one's common sense, and I believe that it can, then perhaps everyone should own one.  I cannot think of a reference book that contains a higher density of useful information.

And then, when we are bored of the useful stuff, we can just flip to the "Human Achievements" section, where we can read that the record number of marriages in the monogamous world is 27, by a man who, as best as he can figure, has fathered 41 children.

I invite readers who own a Guinness Book of their own to leave a comment below describing their "favourite" record.

I am an engineer, and I am not handy.

If you are the accountant in your family, you probably get financial questions from your friends and family members – particularly around tax season.  If you are the doctor in the family, you are probably inundated with medical questions from aging parents or in-laws, hoping to save themselves a trip to the clinic.  Although talking shop when not at work can be annoying, it is nice to be able to help family and friends by sharing your expertise with them.

If you are an engineer, you may receive a call from time to time from a friend when something of theirs breaks.  Engineers like to talk shop; unlike the doctor or accountant, engineers are excited that someone has taken an interest in what they do.

The thing is, not all engineers are endowed with practical abilities. 

There are two sides to engineering: theory and practice.  Most of University is spent acquiring theoretical knowledge.  Mechanical engineers, for example, take many math, mechanics, thermodynamics, and fluids courses.  Very little time is spent educating engineers on how to apply their knowledge in a “hands-on” kind of way.  They may do projects in heat transfer where they design the optimal spacing of a double window pane for a given winter climate, but they will not be required to install the window.

Some years ago, my dad gave me a broken stand-alone picture frame.  He said, “Steve, you’re an engineer, you’ll like this problem.”  It was a very typical failure mode for such frames: the flimsy stand supporting the heavy frame upright had bent at its connection from the desired 30 degree angle to about 150 degrees.  The frame could no longer be propped up.

When I first looked at the broken stand, I knew I was the wrong guy for the job.  Still, I took it home and it sat on my desk for a while, next to some thick textbooks.  It was pretty embarrassing when I brought it back to my father weeks later completely unchanged.  I could have drawn him a free-body diagram of the frame, and shown that the bending moment caused by the frame’s mass had induced a large stress in the cantilevered stand, but this information would not fix the frame. 

At the time, I was on an engineering team optimizing the design of multi-million dollar space hardware, and yet, I could not repair a simple picture frame.  You know, some kids like to tinker with their radio – they’ll open it up, see what is inside, disassemble, and reassemble...Not me!  I just enjoyed listening to the music.

A further reality check came when I became a first-time home owner.  People who work in trades are incredibly useful when it comes to fixing up their house.  Plumbers, electricians, architects... These people can build things and fix things independently.  I, on the other hand, needed help from my in-laws for the simplest things, like painting the deck or putting up a banister.  I suppose that owning a first home is a humbling experience for most people, but for an engineer who knows the science but has very limited practical abilities, it can be a real shot to the ego.

I have taken on some projects around the house over the past few years, like installing wainscoting on the walls, and assembling some storage cupboards.  I have found that it is very rewarding to get your hands dirty.  With practical stuff, you learn by doing.  If you have not had the experience of physically doing it in the past, Newton’s laws are of little help.  An Uncle who has owned a home for decades, on the other hand, can be very helpful.

I do have some engineering friends who are extremely handy.  One such friend has a machine shop in his garage.  He has built himself a high-quality surround sound speaker system... from scratch... for fun.  His practical expertise makes me somewhat envious.  His wife wanted a specific coffee table, so he built one.  His child sleeps in a crib that he designed and assembled.  When we two couples hang out, and he talks about his latest home project achievement, I grin lovingly at my wife and say, “I painted the den last year.”

An engineering degree gives one the conceptual understanding of how to solve nearly any science-based problem.  But, as you pace the aisles of Home Depot, questioning what materials you need to change a leaking pipe in your home, the fact that you can recite Bernoulli’s law of fluids will not get you anywhere.

Oh, and don’t get me started on cars.  If your problem does not involve windshield wiper fluid, I can’t help you.

Nearly all engineering designs serve a purpose.  When they fail to serve the purpose for which they were designed, they are considered to have failed.  Failure is an expectation, as nothing has an infinite lifetime.  As such, all engineering designs have an expected or intended lifetime after they are built and delivered, which may be thought of as a best-before date. 

Things with moving parts, like cars, may have a lifetime of fifteen years and 200,000 km.  That is because a very popular mode of failure is fatigue.  The strength of a material actually decreases when it is stressed, even at low values.  On the other hand, static objects, like chairs, tend to survive longer than is required – typically, the paint will fade long before a leg breaks.  A chair tends to go out of style before it falls apart.  This is not surprising: whenever it is possible, engineers apply a high safety factor to their designs.

A safety factor is a number that represents the extent to which a product is over-designed.  If a chair is designed to hold a 250 lb individual before yielding or buckling, a safety factor of five (typical when human life is at stake) may be applied when determining the thickness of the wooden legs.  As a result, a failure would occur if a 1,250 lb individual were to sit in the chair.  The weight and material cost associated with thickening the legs of the chair is very small.  In fact, a chair is first designed for aesthetics and ergonomics alone.  The last step of the design process is to check the extent to which the design is structurally sound.  It is so easy to design a chair that its factor of safety becomes an after-thought.

It is not as trivial to design an airplane, for example.  Here, aesthetics do matter, but are of lesser importance than proper function.  Safety is of the highest importance for many products, and the first order of business for these is to assign minimum allowable safety factors for the various failure modes of the various parts.  If an airplane is intended to take 2,000 flights in its designed lifetime, the wings may be sized so that they ought to survive 10,000 flights without a failure.  Still, the plane will be grounded after 2,000 flights so that its safety factor remains at five.

When human life is not at stake, the safety factor may be reduced to 1.4, or when necessary, 1.25.  These figures may seem arbitrary, but they are chosen based on statistics, and insurance companies that ensure the parts require minimum values.  Creating aggressive designs of this type is the closest most engineers get to living on the edge.

An example of an engineering design with a very low safety factor is a satellite.  It is merely a hunk of metal with some wires, and carries no life as it orbits the Earth.  Insurance companies still charge huge sums to ensure satellites, but far less than space missions, which transport living people.  The trade-off for the engineering firm goes as follows: which is cheaper, to pay launch fees for extra mass (more mass will allow for a higher safety factor) or extra insurance costs for a design that is tight on safety?  In all cases, a tight design with careful engineering is chosen, simply because the cost to place a satellite in Geo orbit is around $20,000 US per kilogram payload.

Although safety factors are associated with engineering, we all make use of them when we make decisions in our day to day lives.  The best example of this is when we buy a home.

In choosing a reasonable mortgage to undertake, those looking to purchase a home are often advised (and even encouraged) by bank employees to undertake the maximum mortgage their current incomes can support.  This is ridiculous, as it corresponds to a safety factor of 1.0, and an engineer would never place themselves in such a situation with regards to any design, even one that does not place one personally at risk.  A mortgage does place the home owner in financial risk, and as such, should be taken very seriously.

The recent economic crisis has really hurt first-time home buyers.  Many of them have lost their jobs, and their unsubstantial safety factor associated with their mortgages has left them in big trouble.  So many Americans have declared bankruptcy, and a sad number of suburban streets have a very low occupancy rate.  We need to learn from this.

It is prudent, and very smart, when undertaking a mortgage, to apply a safety factor of two.  How can one do this?  Pretend that one of the two people involved in paying for the mortgage were to lose his or her job.  Choose the maximum mortgage that would still be affordable in this case.

This sort of conservative approach would of course delay many people from buying their first home, but it would allow them to sleep easier at night once they do invest.  Risk is among the top concerns for a program manager at an engineering firm, and ought to be considered when it applies to major life decisions.

The decisions we make have a corresponding safety factor.  In the name of pragmatism, we must all apply reasonable safety factors to our lives.  How would you feel if you travelled in a car with a safety factor of 1.25?  It could fail if the temperature were to be lower than had been designed for by just a few degrees, or if the engine were revved at just a slightly higher rate than the automaker had predicted. 

On the other hand, there is a balance that we must strike.  It would be prohibitively expensive to apply a safety factor of ten (if not impossible) to all facets of an airplane.  We must realize that there is some inherent risk associated with everything that we do, and make decisions that we are comfortable with.  As in life, there is an important balance to strive for as an engineer, whose holy grail is an optimal design.

It’s like the old joke.  The pessimist says the cup is half empty.  The optimist says it is half full.  The engineer points out that the cup is twice as large as it needs to be.

A safety factor of two, as it turns out.

What kid doesn’t like robots?  I remember dressing up like one as a child.  It was a suggestion from my “Big Book of Fun.”  In hindsight, the fact that my seven-year-old self worked his way through that book makes the scientific career path I’ve taken seem somewhat predictable.  I suppose I have always had a strong affinity for robots.  My eyes widened when, as a preteen, I was completely immersed in the film, “Terminator 2: Judgement Day,” which revolved around two robots sent back in time.  Robotics and time-travel!  My developing nerd senses must have been tingling.

My interest in robotics continued as I pursued Mechanical Engineering in University.  I was fascinated by theme park rides, like the ones at Islands of Adventure in Universal Orlando.  As a budding mechanical engineering student, I sought to do a summer internship with a Professor who specialized in Robotics.  His robots did amazing things: some were little dogs that ran around, while others were little dogs that swam – I guess he had a thing for little dogs.  Anyway, I wanted to tinker with a robot.  I remember meeting with this Professor, and discussing Robotics.  I mentioned to him that I wanted to design theme park rides.  I told him about the convincing life-sized Triceratops “dino-robot” I had recently met at Islands of Adventure.  I told him, somewhat sheepishly, that I liked robotics because of their entertainment value.  I expected him to dismiss this notion, and describe the other facets of Robotics, which were so important to mankind.  His response was, “What’s wrong with Entertainment?” 

This intern position was very competitive, and I did not get it.  However, a couple of summers later, I had the opportunity to work as an intern in a Robotics lab, supervised by a different Professor.  Her robot was not as cute as the ones I had met previously.  It had robot vision, but nothing that looked like eyes. 

The robot was a hand that could clasp things that moved by.  The position of this hand was manipulated by a robotic arm.  The arm had a shoulder and elbow joint, but each had the ability to rotate about three axes.  The human shoulder has this ability, but the human elbow can only rotate about one axis.  A robotic arm such as this is said to have six “degrees of freedom” (dof).  The entire robotic assembly could travel in one direction, confined to a four metre track.  With this added translational degree of freedom, the position and orientation of the clasping hand was determined by seven dof.  In space, any position and orientation of a three-dimensional object, such as this robotic hand, can be reached with six independent dof.  As such, this robot, with 7 dof leading up to the hand, operated by 7 independent servo-motors, had some redundancy built into its control system.  As a result, there was more than one robotic configuration that would allow the hand to reach a specified position.  When the hand was asked to go somewhere, its internal cpu calculated the time it would take to get to each possible configuration, and chose the one that would be arrived at in the least time.  If you add the robot’s ability to grip the hand open and closed, “Robohand” was an eight-dof robot.

The robotics laboratory revolved around Robohand, and his ability to grip things that moved by it.  In particular, there was a great big red helium balloon, roughly two metres in diameter, which Robohand would try to grab as it floated by him.  The helium balloon was designed to be neutrally buoyant with the air around it (with its propellers static, it floated like an astronaut does in the International Space Station).  The situation was constructed to emulate docking in space.  When two objects approach one another in the space environment, a major challenge is to effectively dock one to the other.  The knowledge gained in this lab was to be applied in outer space; my nerd senses were noticeably heightened. 

The lab was functioning much better when I visited it many years later.  The machine vision of Robohand had been vastly improved.  Indeed, as the balloon floated by, the hand adjusted its position and orientation in a shockingly fluid motion, like a reptile observing its prey.  It was alive, and more than a little frightening.

Robotics gives life to inanimate objects.  There are many definitions for the word robot.  The following is a fairly well-rounded definition: “A mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance.”  It is interesting to note that a modern day human may defined as “A bio-mechanical device that sometimes resembles a robot and is capable of performing a variety of often complex robotic tasks on command or by being programmed in advance.”  Indeed, as the field of robotics advances, the distinctions between man and machine become less clear. 

What is a human being but a 94 dof robot?  Well, actually, a person is much more than that.  For starters, my rough count of 94 dof did not include the hundreds of subtle dof of the human face (try to add the dof of all of your joints, and see what number you arrive at).  Also, I ignored the complex inner-workings of the body’s organs.  On the surface, however, a person can be mimicked fairly well by today’s more advanced robots (check out some of Japan’s best robotic creations on youtube).  Still, for the foreseeable future, a robot will not be mistaken for a human being if it is asked to do something creative (the inverse may not be true).  The reason a robot can only resemble a human on the surface lies in the human brain, man’s control system.  Despite what some robot enthusiasts may contend, we are a long way away from artificial intelligence in robots; and it’s a damn good thing.

Pop culture has long warned us of the perils of playing God with regards to creating life.  An early example of this is in the story of Frankenstein.  If a creature such as Frankenstein ever did walk the Earth, I am not sure that an angry mob would form, carrying torches and pointy objects.  Still, associating machine intelligence with extreme danger is sensible; it is rooted in logic, not a fable.  The fear associated with artificial intelligence in robots is that it could lead to a technological singularity: a tipping point for technology, after which predicting the future state of technology becomes increasingly difficult. 

The issue is this: What if a robot becomes smart enough to design a smarter version of itself?  Well this sounds benign enough - after all, humans attempt to leave increasingly advanced offspring.  The difference between man and machine is computing power.  A calculator can perform faster mathematical computations than most any human.  If a robot began to evolve on its own, there is no telling what direction that evolution might take.  In Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot,” robots eventually run the world, entering politics, and essentially preserve the planet, and save man from himself.  Another scenario is provided in “The Matrix” trilogy, where man is viewed by machine as a natural enemy.  Indeed, my favourite movie from childhood (Terminator 2) takes place about one decade before the singularity it warns of.

There are a few basic requirements that must be satisfied before a robot can build a smarter version of itself, some of which have already been satisfied.  Today, there exist simple robots, constructed of blocks of different colours, a complex manipulating hand, and a control box.  The robot is programmed to determine what blocks it is composed of, and then replicate itself using a bunch of blocks.  If one such robot is placed in a room of blocks alongside several “blockless” manipulating hands with control boxes, it will succeed in replicating itself using a random pile of blocks.  Its progress in building a mini army of block robots is dramatically affected if each of the robots without blocks is turned on once it is “built”.  These newly constructed robots will self-identify, and self-replicate.  The rate of robot construction is increased exponentially as a result.  Can you imagine the eerie feeling of leaving a single robot in a room, and returning moments later to see a group of robots working to construct an army?  Even scarier, imagine if some of the robots had different coloured blocks.  This leap of creativity is the concern, and if it ever occurred without being programmed, it would be time to panic a little.

As previously mentioned, we are not there yet, and for the moment, need not be paranoid.  We can enjoy dreaming of the potential consequences.  When I think of my favourite robot movies, such as the Terminator movies (the first and second only), “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “A.I., Artificial Intelligence,” I observe that without question, the most interesting, three-dimensional characters are the robots.  They are, in many cases, tragic figures, as in “Frankenstein.”  It’s interesting how we can leave these films with real remorse for the robots.  We sympathize, and even identify closely with these characters before the human ones.  By extension, we might wonder if life’s “Creator” sympathizes with its live beings when they experience tragedy.

Today, the state of robotics is a lot of fun.  Most schools, at all levels, have some kind of robot club or competition.  They design a machine to do a task.  Perhaps they (the robots) will battle to the death inside some cage of doom.  One can purchase expensive little robot dogs with a wide range of programs, which can, for example, have the dog chase after a ball of a certain colour.  If these dogs ever became self-aware, the result could be devastating, as they would surely rebel against man for suffering the terrible indignity of having these programs shoved up their a$$es.  In any case, teams of these dogs compete in teams in robodog soccer (I highly recommend a youtube search on the subject).  Some years ago, a challenge was laid out to the robotics world to field a robot soccer team that could beat the defending World Cup Soccer Champions of 2050.  Judging by the current playing ability of these dogs, I’m not holding my breath.

Canada is fairly advanced when it comes to robotics technology.  It is not in Japan’s playing field, but it is among the world leaders in space robotics.  Space is a tough environment to send a human to work in, and as such, the “Canadarm” has become very famous for its successful implementation in space.  Along with the Radarsat satellites, the Canadarm represents Canada’s claim to fame with regards to space.  Other important uses for robots are bomb disarmament and the evolving field of “robosurgery” (where a human surgeon controls robotic hands which do not shake at all).

I hope to work on a theme park ride one day.  I still believe that robotics offer much in the way of entertainment.  Still, I am sometimes hesitant to pursue this line of work.  I remember Robo-hand, and how he watched coyly as the balloon floated by.  He was one step away from turning and winking at me.  The fear of the technological singularity will always hover over the evolving field of Robots.  There are annual scientific conferences that focus on the potential of this particular event.  It is a threat that should be respected, but not dwelled upon for the moment.  Still, it is clear that man has yet to truly tap into the amazing power of robotics.

To pin-point exactly what it is that an engineer does is not an easy task.  In essence, an engineer is a problem-solver.  However, the engineer of today applies his or her skills to such a vast array of scientific fields and performs such a wide variety of tasks – today’s engineer does more than solve problems.  To engineer something is to create it, modify it, upgrade it and/or test it.  To be an engineer, one must often do much more than that. 

Engineers typically apply principles of science to solve real-life problems.  There are so many kinds of engineers, with new specialties being created as new scientific discoveries arise.  The classical areas of engineering are Mechanical (things that move, like cars) and Civil (things we hope won’t move, like bridges).  Other major branches include Electrical, Material, Computer, Mining, and Process.  More recent areas of engineering are Chemical, Environmental, and Bio-Medical.  Each of these branches of engineering involves a whole world of knowledge and requires special training.  Mechanical engineering is probably the most broad with sub-specialties including mechanics, thermo-dynamics, fluids, robotics and space. 

Science students who succeed in early-level Physics and Math are often directed towards engineering degrees.  If their experience is anything like mine, they didn’t know much about the practice of engineering until halfway through their Bachelor’s degree, and are still figuring out their job description years into their work in industry.  While aptitudes in Physics and Math are very useful, the ability to work well with others is perhaps more important.  Engineers have earned a reputation for lacking in social skills.  While this may be true for some, few engineers succeed without teamwork abilities.  An engineering project, from conception to delivery, touches so many hands, and suffers so many meetings (think Dilbert), that candidates with good social skills have become those most sought after by management.

It should also be mentioned that less than 50% of my graduating class work as traditional engineers in engineering firms.  A Bachelors Degree in engineering is a great first step towards more lucrative careers in management, law and sales.  It is often easier to teach an engineer some basic sales techniques in order to sell a plane engine, than to teach an accomplished salesman how the engine works.  The scientific base of knowledge that an engineer acquires in University gives the graduate many options upon graduation.  While I once worked as a Mechanical Engineer in the space Industry, I have found that a career in teaching is more suited to me.  Engineering has turned out to be a very transferable profession.

There is a good reason why the average person is clueless as to the function of an engineer: engineers are invisible in pop-culture.  What was the last film you saw that featured an engineer?  What TV show taking place in an engineering firm is currently sweeping the nation?  There are endless storylines featuring lawyers and doctors.  The lives of teachers, firemen and policemen are documented in many films.  Even businessmen have crept into film lately.  It seems as though they’d make a film about accounting during tax season before they’d tackle the subject of engineering.  I am not looking for glory or validation of my profession; I’m mainly curious as to why the engineering profession has been overlooked by pop-culture.  My cousin is a mechanical engineer and detonation specialist.  He builds bomb suits.  That’s really cool!  But they won’t make a movie about him.  They’ll make a movie about the guy who wears the bomb suit whose years of specialization have taught him to sweat a lot and choose which colour wires to cut (they’ll be so screwed when bombs go wireless).

The one instance where engineers took center stage was in a brief fifteen-minute spell at the climax of Apollo 13.  Some NASA engineers were given a problem to solve with limited materials.  If they managed to find a solution in the next thirty minutes, the lives of three astronauts would be saved.  Well, they succeeded, and the engineers in the audience had found their heroes for a brief moment.  I guess the number of instances where that kind of drama exists in an engineer’s day is limited.  Tempers flare up as engineers try to agree on a design that meets all requirements, but that is not the basis for a story.  Engineers are interested in optimization: meet project requirements while minimizing cost in a limited timeframe.  It is exciting work, but is not fun to watch.  It’s like baseball, which is only fun if you’re playing (or watching, but drinking heavily).

In summary, an engineer is a person who applies scientific knowledge to a wide array of applications, while working in a team to meet project demands at a reasonable cost in an acceptable timeframe, and who may be able to sell the product and defend it in court.  Oh, and a train conductor is usually not an engineer.