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Author: Chandra Mukerji Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400833140 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
The Canal du Midi, which threads through southwestern France and links the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was an astonishing feat of seventeenth-century engineering--in fact, it was technically impossible according to the standards of its day. Impossible Engineering takes an insightful and entertaining look at the mystery of its success as well as the canal's surprising political significance. The waterway was a marvel that connected modern state power to human control of nature just as surely as it linked the ocean to the sea. The Canal du Midi is typically characterized as the achievement of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a tax farmer and entrepreneur for the canal. Yet Chandra Mukerji argues that it was a product of collective intelligence, depending on peasant women and artisans--unrecognized heirs to Roman traditions of engineering--who came to labor on the waterway in collaboration with military and academic supervisors. Ironically, while Louis XIV and his treasury minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert used propaganda to present France as a new Rome, the Canal du Midi was being constructed with unrecognized classical methods. Still, the result was politically potent. As Mukerji shows, the project took land and power from local nobles, using water itself as a silent agent of the state to disrupt traditions of local life that had served regional elites. Impossible Engineering opens a surprising window into the world of seventeenth-century France and illuminates a singular work of engineering undertaken to empower the state through technical conquest of nature.
Author: Chandra Mukerji Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400833140 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
The Canal du Midi, which threads through southwestern France and links the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was an astonishing feat of seventeenth-century engineering--in fact, it was technically impossible according to the standards of its day. Impossible Engineering takes an insightful and entertaining look at the mystery of its success as well as the canal's surprising political significance. The waterway was a marvel that connected modern state power to human control of nature just as surely as it linked the ocean to the sea. The Canal du Midi is typically characterized as the achievement of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a tax farmer and entrepreneur for the canal. Yet Chandra Mukerji argues that it was a product of collective intelligence, depending on peasant women and artisans--unrecognized heirs to Roman traditions of engineering--who came to labor on the waterway in collaboration with military and academic supervisors. Ironically, while Louis XIV and his treasury minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert used propaganda to present France as a new Rome, the Canal du Midi was being constructed with unrecognized classical methods. Still, the result was politically potent. As Mukerji shows, the project took land and power from local nobles, using water itself as a silent agent of the state to disrupt traditions of local life that had served regional elites. Impossible Engineering opens a surprising window into the world of seventeenth-century France and illuminates a singular work of engineering undertaken to empower the state through technical conquest of nature.
Author: N. Jeremy Kasdin Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400839076 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 704
Book Description
This textbook introduces undergraduate students to engineering dynamics using an innovative approach that is at once accessible and comprehensive. Combining the strengths of both beginner and advanced dynamics texts, this book has students solving dynamics problems from the very start and gradually guides them from the basics to increasingly more challenging topics without ever sacrificing rigor. Engineering Dynamics spans the full range of mechanics problems, from one-dimensional particle kinematics to three-dimensional rigid-body dynamics, including an introduction to Lagrange's and Kane's methods. It skillfully blends an easy-to-read, conversational style with careful attention to the physics and mathematics of engineering dynamics, and emphasizes the formal systematic notation students need to solve problems correctly and succeed in more advanced courses. This richly illustrated textbook features numerous real-world examples and problems, incorporating a wide range of difficulty; ample use of MATLAB for solving problems; helpful tutorials; suggestions for further reading; and detailed appendixes. Provides an accessible yet rigorous introduction to engineering dynamics Uses an explicit vector-based notation to facilitate understanding Professors: A supplementary Instructor's Manual is available for this book. It is restricted to teachers using the text in courses. For information on how to obtain a copy, refer to: http://press.princeton.edu/class_use/solutions.html
Author: Diego Gambetta Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400888123 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
A groundbreaking investigation into why so many Islamic radicals are engineers The violent actions of a few extremists can alter the course of history, yet there persists a yawning gap between the potential impact of these individuals and what we understand about them. In Engineers of Jihad, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamist radicals come from an engineering background, and that Islamist and right-wing extremism have more in common than either does with left-wing extremism, in which engineers are absent while social scientists and humanities students are prominent. Searching for an explanation, they tackle four general questions about extremism: Under which socioeconomic conditions do people join extremist groups? Does the profile of extremists reflect how they self-select into extremism or how groups recruit them? Does ideology matter in sorting who joins which group? Lastly, is there a mindset susceptible to certain types of extremism? Using rigorous methods and several new datasets, they explain the link between educational discipline and type of radicalism by looking at two key factors: the social mobility (or lack thereof) for engineers in the Muslim world, and a particular mindset seeking order and hierarchy that is found more frequently among engineers. Engineers' presence in some extremist groups and not others, the authors argue, is a proxy for individual traits that may account for the much larger question of selective recruitment to radical activism. Opening up markedly new perspectives on the motivations of political violence, Engineers of Jihad yields unexpected answers about the nature and emergence of extremism.
Author: Robert McGinn Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400889103 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 353
Book Description
An exploration of the ethics of practical engineering through analyses of eighteen rich case studies The Ethical Engineer explores ethical issues that arise in engineering practice, from technology transfer to privacy protection to whistle-blowing. Presenting key ethics concepts and real-life examples of engineering work, Robert McGinn illuminates the ethical dimension of engineering practice and helps students and professionals determine engineers’ context-specific ethical responsibilities. McGinn highlights the “ethics gap” in contemporary engineering—the disconnect between the meager exposure to ethical issues in engineering education and the ethical challenges frequently faced by engineers. He elaborates four “fundamental ethical responsibilities of engineers” (FEREs) and uses them to shed light on the ethical dimensions of diverse case studies, including ones from emerging engineering fields. The cases range from the Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster in India to the Google Street View project. After examining the extent to which the actions of engineers in the cases align with the FEREs, McGinn recapitulates key ideas used in analyzing the cases and spells out the main lessons they suggest. He identifies technical, social, and personal factors that induce or press engineers to engage in misconduct and discusses organizational, legal, and individual resources available to those interested in ethically responsible engineering practice. Combining probing analysis and nuanced ethical evaluation of engineering conduct in its social and technical contexts, The Ethical Engineer will be invaluable to engineering students and professionals. Meets the need for engineering-related ethics study Elaborates four fundamental ethical responsibilities of engineers Discusses diverse, global cases of ethical issues in established and emerging engineering fields Identifies resources and options for ethically responsible engineering practice Provides discussion questions for each case
Author: Edward L. Robinson Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691169926 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 408
Book Description
Data Analysis for Scientists and Engineers is a modern, graduate-level text on data analysis techniques for physical science and engineering students as well as working scientists and engineers. Edward Robinson emphasizes the principles behind various techniques so that practitioners can adapt them to their own problems, or develop new techniques when necessary. Robinson divides the book into three sections. The first section covers basic concepts in probability and includes a chapter on Monte Carlo methods with an extended discussion of Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. The second section introduces statistics and then develops tools for fitting models to data, comparing and contrasting techniques from both frequentist and Bayesian perspectives. The final section is devoted to methods for analyzing sequences of data, such as correlation functions, periodograms, and image reconstruction. While it goes beyond elementary statistics, the text is self-contained and accessible to readers from a wide variety of backgrounds. Specialized mathematical topics are included in an appendix. Based on a graduate course on data analysis that the author has taught for many years, and couched in the looser, workaday language of scientists and engineers who wrestle directly with data, this book is ideal for courses on data analysis and a valuable resource for students, instructors, and practitioners in the physical sciences and engineering. In-depth discussion of data analysis for scientists and engineers Coverage of both frequentist and Bayesian approaches to data analysis Extensive look at analysis techniques for time-series data and images Detailed exploration of linear and nonlinear modeling of data Emphasis on error analysis Instructor's manual (available only to professors)
Author: C. Stewart Gillmor Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400886236 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 348
Book Description
In a period of active scientific innovation and technological change, Charles Augustin Coulomb (1736-1806) made major contributions to the development of physics in the areas of torsion and electricity and magnetism; as one of the great engineering theorists, he produced fundamental studies in strength of materials, soil mechanics, structural design, and friction. Stewart Gillmor gives a full account of Coulomb's life and an assessment of his work in the first biography of this notable scientist. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Author: Rudolf Mrázek Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691186936 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 335
Book Description
Based on close reading of historical documents--poetry as much as statistics--and focused on the conceptualization of technology, this book is an unconventional evocation of late colonial Netherlands East Indies (today Indonesia). In considering technology and the ways that people use and think about things, Rudolf Mrázek invents an original way to talk about freedom, colonialism, nationalism, literature, revolution, and human nature. The central chapters comprise vignettes and take up, in turn, transportation (from shoes to road-building to motorcycle clubs), architecture (from prison construction to home air-conditioning), optical technologies (from photography to fingerprinting), clothing and fashion, and the introduction of radio and radio stations. The text clusters around a group of fascinating recurring characters representing colonialism, nationalism, and the awkward, inevitable presence of the European cultural, intellectual, and political avant-garde: Tillema, the pharmacist-author of Kromoblanda; the explorer/engineer IJzerman; the "Javanese princess" Kartina; the Indonesia nationalist journalist Mas Marco; the Dutch novelist Couperus; the Indonesian novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer; and Dutch left-wing liberal Wim Wertheim and his wife. In colonial Indies, as elsewhere, people employed what Proust called "remembering" and what Heidegger called "thinging" to sense and make sense of the world. In using this observation to approach Indonesian society, Mrázek captures that society off balance, allowing us to see it in unfamiliar positions. The result is a singular work with surprises for readers throughout the social sciences, not least those interested in Southeast Asia or colonialism more broadly.
Author: Philipp Lehmann Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691239347 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
How technological advances and colonial fears inspired utopian geoengineering projects during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries From the 1870s to the mid-twentieth century, European explorers, climatologists, colonial officials, and planners were avidly interested in large-scale projects that might actively alter the climate. Uncovering this history, Desert Edens looks at how arid environments and an increasing anxiety about climate in the colonial world shaped this upsurge in ideas about climate engineering. From notions about the transformation of deserts into forests to Nazi plans to influence the climates of war-torn areas, Philipp Lehmann puts the early climate change debate in its environmental, intellectual, and political context, and considers the ways this legacy reverberates in the present climate crisis. Lehmann examines some of the most ambitious climate-engineering projects to emerge in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Confronted with the Sahara in the 1870s, the French developed concepts for a flooding project that would lead to the creation of a man-made Sahara Sea. In the 1920s, German architect Herman Sörgel proposed damming the Mediterranean in order to geoengineer an Afro-European continent called “Atlantropa,” which would fit the needs of European settlers. Nazi designs were formulated to counteract the desertification of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Despite ideological and technical differences, these projects all incorporated and developed climate change theories and vocabulary. They also combined expressions of an extreme environmental pessimism with a powerful technological optimism that continue to shape the contemporary moment. Focusing on the intellectual roots, intended effects, and impact of early measures to modify the climate, Desert Edens investigates how the technological imagination can be inspired by pressing fears about the environment and civilization.
Author: David P. Billington Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691242402 Category : Technology & Engineering Languages : en Pages : 304
Book Description
Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939—the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison's system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford's Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann's George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane. These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough—a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With Power, Speed, and Form, educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America's development and that are still the foundations of modern life.
Author: Chandra Mukerji
Author: Chandra Mukerji
Author: N. Jeremy Kasdin
Author: Diego Gambetta
Author: Robert McGinn
Author: Edward L. Robinson
Author: C. Stewart Gillmor
Author: Rudolf Mrázek
Author: Paul Nahin
Author: Philipp Lehmann
Author: David P. Billington