The Existential Pleasures Of Engineering

Download or read book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering written by Samuel C. Florman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 1996-02-15 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic examination of how engineers think and feel about their profession and its philosophy. “A useful read for engineers given to self-scrutiny, and a stimulating one for the layman interested in the ancient schism between machines and men’s souls.” —Time Humans have always sought to change their environment, building houses, monuments, temples, and roads. In the process, they have remade the fabric of the world into newly functional objects that are also works of art to be admired. Now as engineering plays an increasingly important role in the world while coming under attack for all manner of sins, one must wonder about the nature of the engineering experience in our time. In this, the second edition of his popular Existential Pleasures of Engineering, Samuel Florman perceptively explores how engineers think and feel about their profession. Dispelling the myth that engineering is cold and passionless, Florman celebrates it as something vital and alive. He views engineering as a response to some of our deepest impulses, rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. Opposing the “antitechnology” stance, Florman brilliantly emerges with a more practical, creative, and fun philosophy of engineering that boasts pride in his craft. First published in 1976, this classic book is essential reading for anyone curious about what wonders we have wrought. “Gracefully written . . . refreshing and highly infectious enthusiasm . . . imaginatively engineered.” —The New York Times Book Review

Download or read book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering written by Samuel C. Florman and published by Souvenir Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans have always sought to change their environment - building houses, monuments, temples and roads. In the process, they have remade the fabric of the world into newly functional objects that are also works of art to be admired. Samuel Florman explores how engineers think and feel about their profession in The Existential Pleasures of Engineering. Florman celebrates engineering as not only crucial and fundamental but also vital and alive; he views it as a response to some of our deepest impulses, an endeavour rich in spiritual and sensual rewards. An eloquent, witty and perceptive celebration of our deepest creative impulses, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering is an informative account of the modern-day engineer's experience.

Download or read book The Introspective Engineer written by Samuel C. Florman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The profession of engineering is rarely the topic of serious public discussion. Multimedia, virtual reality, information superhighway-these are the buzzwords of the day. But real engineers, the people who conceive of computers and oversee their manufacture, the people who design and build information systems, cars, bridges, and airplanes, labor in obscurity. There are no engineering heroes, and we as a society are poorer for this. Like Florman's landmark book, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, The Introspective Engineer is a clarion call to society. We must awaken to the reality that the quality of human life depends on increasingly creative technological solutions to the problems we face. We need cleaner, more economical engines, faster computers, more power, and a healthier planet if we are to survive. It is engineers who will lead us to this future.

Download or read book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering written by Samuel C. Florman and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Good Guys, Wiseguys, and Putting Up Buildings written by Samuel C. Florman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good Guys, Wiseguys, and Putting Up Buildings is an engaging memoir about one man's career in construction--rising to the top of an industry renowned for crime, corruption, violence, physical danger, and the chronic risk of financial catastrophe. Starting in the Navy Seabees at the end of WWII, Samuel C. Florman made his way as a general contractor in New York City through the period of explosive development, private exuberance and the historic growth of publicly supported housing--all amidst the rise of the notorious Mafia families, and evolution of the Civil Rights Movement. His storied career brought him into contact with a variety of personalities: politicians and civil servants, developers and technocrats, saintly do-gooders and corrupt rapscallions. Along with the rousing adventures there were satisfactions of a different sort: the enchantment of seeing architecture made real; the pride of creating housing, hospitals, schools, places of worship--shelter for the body and nourishment for the spirit.

Download or read book Environmental Ethics For Engineers written by Alastair S Gunn and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have used this book, manuscript form, as supplemental reading in our environmental engineering classes at Duke University. The discussion of ethics is usually reserved for the final few days of class, when the students should start asking ‘so what? about course material. We respond to this question by covering the principles of ethics in one lecture and spending two or more sessions discussing various readings. Engineering students who have spent four years learning how to crunch numbers and to solve technical problems to three significant figures admit that the study of environmental ethics introduces new and exciting concepts into their professional thinking, and provides a perspective which otherwise would be missing from their education.

Download or read book Meaning in Technology written by Arnold Pacey and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thoughtful meditation on the role of meaning and purpose in the development of technology.