Beauty in Engineering

I don't want this blog to turn into just a collection of rants, raves, and laments.  Life sucks sometimes and it feels cathartic to write about it, but life is also pretty awesome at times and it wouldn't be fair to only focus on the shitty bits.  So here's my explanation of why design engineering is awesome.

Because engineers don't explicitly study art, literature, history, and the like there is a pervasive stereotype that we are narrow minded and unable to appreciate beauty or think abstractly.  I have found this stereotype most widely postured by those in the humanities and liberal arts fields.  While we may not have as refined an understanding of artwork, or be able to read into every nuance in a piece of literature, we see completely different kinds of beauty and understand the nuances of the systems and phenomena that we all interact with on a daily basis.  I like to think that what we do is simply a different form of art, even though it is often perceived as the opposite of artwork.

Culturally, engineering is typically associated with being a difficult profession with a lucrative career path.  And it is certainly true that there are many people that go into engineering solely in hopes of a large salary.  However, there are even more that choose engineering because it allows you to see the world from a very unique perspective.  Engineering teaches you a lot of difficult math in order to show you a new way of describing the world.  You start looking at everything around you not just at face value but as a product of mathematical modeling, educated design choices and human ingenuity.  Quite literally everything can be viewed this way: buildings, parks, computers, cars, roads, furniture, the list is endless!  Even the pens we write with contain an amazing number of design parameters (ink life, drying time, ergonomics, material safety, mechanical connections, and durability to name a few).  Engineering education and practice fosters an appreciation for the complexity all around us.

If you ever took a pen apart as a kid (or adult) and marveled at how all the pieces fit together so precisely you've experienced the kind of wonder and beauty in design that engineers cherish.

A decade ago, an MP3 player of this size was unthinkable.  Engineering design
makes tomorrow's technology possible.

While engineers deal with a lot of complexity, we are also tasked with simplifying and streamlining these complexities and allowing anyone to interact with them and reap their benefits.  Take an iPod shuffle for example.  While arguments can be made over the value of Apple products versus the cost of their parts, it is hard to argue against the elegance of both their outward and internal design.  While it is not a painting or great work of literature there is beauty in all of the design choices and amazing concepts present in this tiny device. Digital storage, compression algorithms, noise reduction, filtering, D/A conversion, communication protocols, firmware programming, PCB design, power management, battery chemistry, precision machining, ergonomics, aesthetics... the list is long and interdisciplinary.  All these designs and concepts could independently be life long devotions of study.  The beauty for me in the shuffle is seeing all these fields come together in something the size of a quarter to produce a product of such simplicity. 

In my mind engineering is the essence of art and creativity.

Anyone out there in the void have any thoughts?