De(con)struction: LJ Idol Week 2
When people think of an engineer (if they ever think of one at all, that is), the concept of "construction" is more likely to spring to mind than that of "deconstruction" (or indeed "destruction"!)
However, one of the first signs that a child might be going to become an engineer is the dismaying sight of dismantled clocks and other household apparatus. If, on being questioned why they did this, they respond "because I wanted to know how it works", this suspicion is likely true. (If they are going to be a skilled technician they will probably have reassembled it before you even notice, with pieces to spare; if not, you may have a research-minded engineer on your hands).
Many engineers, having finished their training, will go on to construct things, rather than deconstruct them. But there exist those who have to analyse the aftermath of structures (buildings, aeroplanes, cooling towers etc.) after they have failed. And there are also those who try to deconstruct possible failure mechanisms before they occur, and to help develop new building codes to ensure that such failures never happen.
Sometimes the authorities are too pig-headed to listen. The UK's failure to adopt one such supposedly Europe-wide code led almost certainly to the Ferrybridge disaster. The lessons of the Tacoma Narrows bridge have still not been learned properly: the Millennium Bridge in London having proved that; but there are other bridges which also still suffer from resonance problems.
It is not an easy road being a disaster analyst, whether scrabbling through the wreckage looking for telltale clues, or being the prophet of doom who has to advise on remedial measures before the disaster has yet happened. You will not be thanked. On the contrary, big business may tell you to shut your mouth (or worse), or governments may suppress your work for 20 years in the hope that it can be written off as "freak accident" rather than "man-made disaster".
An inveterate need to know "how it works"? Deconstruction as a way to learn how better to construct in the future? You decide.
However, one of the first signs that a child might be going to become an engineer is the dismaying sight of dismantled clocks and other household apparatus. If, on being questioned why they did this, they respond "because I wanted to know how it works", this suspicion is likely true. (If they are going to be a skilled technician they will probably have reassembled it before you even notice, with pieces to spare; if not, you may have a research-minded engineer on your hands).
Many engineers, having finished their training, will go on to construct things, rather than deconstruct them. But there exist those who have to analyse the aftermath of structures (buildings, aeroplanes, cooling towers etc.) after they have failed. And there are also those who try to deconstruct possible failure mechanisms before they occur, and to help develop new building codes to ensure that such failures never happen.
Sometimes the authorities are too pig-headed to listen. The UK's failure to adopt one such supposedly Europe-wide code led almost certainly to the Ferrybridge disaster. The lessons of the Tacoma Narrows bridge have still not been learned properly: the Millennium Bridge in London having proved that; but there are other bridges which also still suffer from resonance problems.
It is not an easy road being a disaster analyst, whether scrabbling through the wreckage looking for telltale clues, or being the prophet of doom who has to advise on remedial measures before the disaster has yet happened. You will not be thanked. On the contrary, big business may tell you to shut your mouth (or worse), or governments may suppress your work for 20 years in the hope that it can be written off as "freak accident" rather than "man-made disaster".
An inveterate need to know "how it works"? Deconstruction as a way to learn how better to construct in the future? You decide.