Engineering Without Numbers.
Engineering Without Numbers.
Yes, that’s a thing.
Can we design and build the world without numbers? Must we always resort to mathematics? Considering the training in sciences, technologies and mathematics that must be endured to become an engineer, this might seem an odd question. However, sometimes we must engineer without recourse to numbers, because we must.
This can make engineers a little uncomfortable.
Consider the very early stages of any concept design exercise. All we have is a suspicion. We’ve made an observation, we’ve found a clue, and perhaps we might even have a hunch. We really can find ourselves with a blank piece of paper, and not much else.
What we definitely don’t have is any money.
In the earliest stages of a concept design we don’t really know what the problem is, we don’t know much about the customer, and we definitely don’t know what the solution might be, nor do we know what technology is required to realise that solution.
From here we must begin to search for evidence to prove each of these. If we are replete with a comprehensive set of engineering skills, from here we might expect that we can dive right into the numbers. However, there is a problem.
Numbers cost money.
Lots of money.
The moment we set foot in the laboratory, hangar, wind tunnel, launch pad or even the library we begin to burn money in our pursuit of those expensive numbers.
Of course, we could estimate some numbers. We could make some guesses at sizes, shapes, powers, and performance. We could scribble them on the back of a napkin, and make some estimates.
However, if the concept is suitably disruptive, these will be wild guesses. And when we combine those guesses, error builds upon error, doubt grows upon doubt, and this leads to a problem when we must compete for funds.
Crazy concepts and disruptive innovations must draw from the same pool of cash that every other proposal is attempting to draw upon. Therefore, a very convincing argument must be assembled and a pitch must be made to win those funds, in preference to every other.
If this argument is built upon estimates that are built upon estimates, and error built upon error, without much expensive evidence from the lab, it may take very little to provoke this house of cards to come tumbling down.
Instead, we need an argument based upon binary reasoning. A black and white pitch. Something either is, or it is not. You build your argument on what the audience absolutely, definitely, already know to be true. You build your argument on what the audience absolutely, definitely, already know to be untrue. You accept no feature that resides on some middle ground. You build an argument in which no contradictions are to be found at all. You build an argument on firmly agreed upon truth.
If someone wishes to refute your argument, they must now work quite hard to challenge your pitch.
How this is done, I describe in other articles.
Therefore we cannot engage with the engineering trade space. A little from Column A. A little from Column B. We cannot build our pitch upon our estimate of the compromises that must be made to realise a practical engineering structure. If we do, those with a vested interest in rejecting our pitch can very easily refute our argument simply by introducing doubt. They don’t have to be right nor wrong, they just need to introduce doubt.
This is when things get weird.
When we build an argument that rests upon a rhetorical foundation rather than the hard numerical evidence that a new concept will sorely lack, this argument begins to exhibit more in common with legal rather than scientific proof.
Our pitch can feel more like a prosecution lawyer building a killer argument rather than a scientist proposing a hypothesis.
When we must assemble a concept using strong rhetoric as evidence, engineering becomes very wordy. It need not be any less precise. If we are to succeed, the words we use must be chosen with care. The very interesting feature of this approach is that those who excel at this may not be those you might expect.
An engineering education, with it’s heavy emphasis upon the technical topics, tends to filter for those with a mathematical flair. Those who succeed tend to be those who can juggle the numbers from one hand to the other with ease. Conversely, I assume those with a more rhetorical or linguistic talent get filtered out of the system, to pursue other topics.
However, I have introduced schoolkids to this type of rhetorical analysis, and this experience really makes me wonder. After all, to introduce schoolkids to a topic is to present to an audience before the filter of further education has done its work.
In these presentations I don’t introduce any mathematics at all. The whole design exercise is realised rhetorically. If you have a GPT4 account, you can actually engage in this workshop by chatting to the AI I trained to present this material.
I’ve presented this to schoolkids many times, and those with a rhetorical flourish tend to offer the best ideas. Those who can build an argument tend to contribute the most. Those with a wild imagination that they can articulate well will offer a volume of fantastic ideas.
Engineers tend to be of a certain type, and those contributors with a linguistic flair do not necessarily present as a typical engineer.
And throughout, I wonder if an engineering education, with its heavy emphasis upon the mathematical topics, will filter these contributors from a career in engineering.
It makes me wonder, how many potentially excellent engineering designers, who can build a rhetorical argument with finesse, are being filtered from a career in engineering by the education itself?
