Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

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.

I have always been fascinated by the way things work and how they came to take the form that they did. Writing about these things satisfies my curiosity about the made world while at the same time giving me an opportunity to design a new explanation for the processes that shape it.

Grades can matter, especially for those students and parents who live for the next round of applications to graduate or professional schools. But there's a problem with the grade emphasis. Math or science graduates earn more than students majoring in the humanities.

There are relatively few science fiction or fantasy books with the main character being an old person.

I admit that I look at my social media when I'm killing time, like on a plane and such. It's just less embarrassing getting caught on Twitter than getting caught playing Candy Crush.

I dream of not having access to technology. I think it's a very wonderful time that we have found ourselves in, in terms of access to information, but alone time is better for some personalities than others. And I would very gladly give it up. I think I'd do very well.