Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

What is commonly overlooked in using the computer is the fact that the central goal of design is still to obviate failure, and thus it is critical to identify exactly how a structure may fail. The computer cannot do this by itself . . .

No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.

Design is nothing if not decision making.

All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.

There's so much written about the Titanic, and it's hard to separate what's fact and what's fiction. My understanding is that the way the Titanic was designed, the emphasis was placed on surviving a head-on collision.

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.