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kimscozyreads's review against another edition
4.0
Great book; only reason I'm deducting a star is that it feels redundant at times (even though that's usually a good thing in engineering) and sometimes runs off on tangents that don't feel incredibly relevant.
It explains technicam mechanisms of failure for several notable cases very well and taught me a lot of history I was totally unaware of in the development of modern structures. It also spoke quite a bit about metallurgy, which made me happy. Mention of issues like our loss of the sense of significant figures since the calculator replaced the slide rule seem important to me, and I understand better why sig figs were discussed a lot in my introductory classes now; I don't have the awareness of them that engineers who came up working on slide rules do, and my computer programs won't have it either unless I write them to address that. Anyway, overall still a great book and not too long.
It explains technicam mechanisms of failure for several notable cases very well and taught me a lot of history I was totally unaware of in the development of modern structures. It also spoke quite a bit about metallurgy, which made me happy. Mention of issues like our loss of the sense of significant figures since the calculator replaced the slide rule seem important to me, and I understand better why sig figs were discussed a lot in my introductory classes now; I don't have the awareness of them that engineers who came up working on slide rules do, and my computer programs won't have it either unless I write them to address that. Anyway, overall still a great book and not too long.
didireadthat's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I loved this book. It was full of great examples, and written in a way that easily explains many aspects of structural engineering. The short chapters made the book go buy quickly and I appreciated the optimism in the wake of many mistakes.
The book kinda of lost me when it started to show its age talking about computers and it was difficult for me to stay interested around chapter 14. But everything I liked at the beginning was brought back in the conclusion. Overall a great book and I wish I had come across it sooner.
The book kinda of lost me when it started to show its age talking about computers and it was difficult for me to stay interested around chapter 14. But everything I liked at the beginning was brought back in the conclusion. Overall a great book and I wish I had come across it sooner.
andrewrmart's review against another edition
3.0
A book for structural engineers about learning from failure (obviously), which in its first half is fairly accessible to the layperson. Chapter 2 is one of my favorite chapters of anything, ever, but the writing and case studies started to lose me about half way through.
prynne31's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Great info! Just wish there were an updated edition to cover the last 30 yrs.
da1sy's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
I found this book very interesting and it’s real life examples helped make concepts easier to understand.
rdiii's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
Frankly, a short book is the worst format possible for the content.
The concept would make a fantastic 45 minute lecture in an engineering ethics course. It would also make a good textbook for in depth exploration of the role of failure on future design, risk mitigation, historical data, etc.
however a small book gets the worst of both worlds. It doesn’t have the depth to be more useful than thought provoking, and is far too long and drawn out to just be thought provoking.
The concept would make a fantastic 45 minute lecture in an engineering ethics course. It would also make a good textbook for in depth exploration of the role of failure on future design, risk mitigation, historical data, etc.
however a small book gets the worst of both worlds. It doesn’t have the depth to be more useful than thought provoking, and is far too long and drawn out to just be thought provoking.