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

Form follows failure.

The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.

A failed structure provides a counterexample to a hypothesis and shows us incontrovertibly what cannot be done, while a structure that stands without incident often conceals whatever lessons or caveats it might hold for the next generation of engineers.

Engineers are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their calculations, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgivable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others.

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

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