The Nature of Technology Kap 5 Flashcards
Engineering and its solutions (10 cards)
What two major insights emerge when we analyze a technology from the inside rather than treating it as a stand‑alone object?
Fluidity across time: A technology’s internal parts are constantly being swapped for better materials, methods, or scientific understandings, so the artifact is “dynamic, alive, highly configurable, and highly changeable.”
Expanded possibility space: Internally, a technology is a vocabulary of components that can be recombined, much like commands in the Macintosh Toolbox, to create endlessly novel functions. Seeing this turns a gadget from a few stand‑alone features into an open language of expression.
How does Arthur define “standard (day‑to‑day) engineering,” and how is it distinct from invention?
Standard engineering is the design, testing, and construction of a new version of a known technology under accepted principles—e.g., building the next Airbus, not inventing flight. It relies on familiar components, yet often pushes them to higher performance or new contexts. Invention, by contrast, introduces an entirely new technology rather than a variant of an existing one.
Textbooks describe three classic stages in a design project. What are they, and why does Arthur say real projects rarely follow a tidy top‑down sequence?
1. Overall concept.
2. Detailed design of assemblies and parts.
3. Manufacture/construction with feedback loops.
In practice, especially on challenging projects, designers cycle back and forth: multiple concepts are tried, unexpected glitches force re‑designs, and compromises across assemblies are constantly negotiated so everything balances.
Why is engineering inherently a form of problem solving?
A new design is only commissioned when something must change—performance, environment, materials, or market—so each project poses a new problem. Meeting it demands fresh or modified assemblies at every level, making the finished artifact a set of solutions to a set of problems.
In what way does routine engineering work drive technological innovation?
Across many projects, engineers accumulate myriad small “solutions‑within‑solutions.” These incremental improvements aggregate, steadily pushing a technology and its domain forward and generating much of the productivity gain seen in industrial economies—what Arthur calls “standard engineering learns.”
Describe the pathway by which a clever engineering solution can evolve into a new technological building block.
When a novel combination reliably solves a recurring problem, others copy it; repeated use turns it into a named, encapsulated module—much like a Dawkinsian meme—which joins handbooks alongside “nineteen shaft couplings” or “five oscillator circuits” and becomes available for future combinations.
How does Arthur relate technological selection to Darwinian processes, and what role does “lock‑in” play?
Novel solutions appear abruptly through purposeful recombination (non‑Darwinian), but afterwards they do undergo a Darwin‑like winnowing: designers preferentially adopt the more visible or prevalent variant. Early chance advantages can snowball, locking‑in a sub‑optimal choice—e.g., light‑water reactors dominating despite alternatives.
How did the JT9D engine saga illustrate the messiness of standard engineering?
The Boeing 747’s heavy JT9D turbofan suffered sticking stators, overheating turbines, and, worst, casing ovalization that caused blade rub. Only an inverted Y‑frame mount cut deflection 80 %, but the fixes delayed the aircraft’s launch—showing how unforeseen glitches trigger iterative redesigns.
What makes Robert Maillart’s 1933 Schwandbach bridge an icon of engineering creativity, even though it used no new materials or overall form?
Maillart stiffened the deck so loads spread evenly, letting him craft an exceptionally slender reinforced‑concrete arch with minimal scaffolding. The result is structurally sound, economical, and aesthetically “floating,” proving that artistic elegance can emerge from deft recombination of familiar elements.
According to Arthur, why is combination a by‑product rather than the conscious goal of design, and how is this like language?
Designers begin with an intention and subconsciously choose components—just as speakers select words—to express it. The artifact’s component combination, like a sentence’s word order, materializes after the conceptual “thought.” Thus design is a form of composition: design is expression.
