Walter G Vincenti
Biographic Data
| ID | 1466980 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Walter G Vincenti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Walter G |
| FAMILY NAME | Vincenti |
| SIGNATURE | VINCENTI W G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
On an Engineering Use of Engineering History
On an Engineering Use of Engineering History William M. Newman (bio) and Walter G. Vincenti (bio) This is a tale of how writing about the engineering past is benefiting the engineering present. Our story is not of the familiar kind, however, in which knowledge of the past failure or success of a particular device has influenced later, related designs. Instead, we deal here with a general methodology from the history of one engineering field and i…
Boundaries, Contingencies and Rigor: Thoughts on Mathematics Prompted by a Case Study in Transonic Aerodynamics
A case study in the history of transonic aerodynamics, circa 1950, is used as a basis for reflecting on the character of the distinction between pure and applied mathematics, including the mathematics used by engineers. The case study is set against an historical background of disciplinary confrontation led by such eminent representatives of mathematics and aerodynamics as Garrett Birkhoff and Theodore von Kármán. The successful attempt to constr…
Engineering Theory in the Making: "Aerodynamic Calculation "Breaks the Sound Barrier
controls of the Bell XS-1 experimental aircraft, became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Aerodynamic design of this straight-wing monoplane was based on wind-tunnel tests of a model plus empirical knowledge, still embryonic, of airflow near sonic speed. Engineering theory, by contrast, took another five to six years to break the sound barrier by calculations for even a simple aerodynamic shape. The theoretical problem thus …
The Technical Shaping of Technology: Real-World Constraints and Technical Logic in Edison's Electrical Lighting System
This paper discusses the role of the physical world and technical logic in constraining the shaping of technology. For illustration, Edison's development of the electrical incandescent-lighting system is used as a didactic example of how such shaping can significantly limit engineers' room to manoeuvre in arriving at their design decisions. With these results as springboard, observations and reflections are offered about real-world and other tech…
Comment and Response on “The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear”
Communications COMMENT AND RESPONSE ON “THE RETRACTABLE AIRPLANE LANDING GEAR" To the Editor: It would be difficult to disagree with Edward W. Constant’s praise {Technology and Culture 35 [1994]: 447—49) of Walter Vincenti’s most recent contribution to our understanding of “what engineers know and how they know it,” “The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop ‘Anomaly’: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology” ^Technology an…
"The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop "Anomaly: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology
Dans les annees 1930, pratiquement tous les dessinateurs en aeronautique avaient adopte le train d'atterrissage rentrant. Un homme, Northrop (J.) avait cependant refuse ce modele. A travers son exemple, c'est l'histoire sociale de l'ingenierie qui est analysee
The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop “Anomaly”: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology
The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop ‘Anomaly”: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology WALTER G. VINCENTI Airplane designers today routinely provide their high-performance aircraft with a landing (and takeoff) gear that retracts inside the vehicle in flight. Few people apart from the designers give attention to that fact. As with other devices that attract little notice, however, the retractable landing gear has a his…
What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies From Aeronautical History
Nasa Engineers and the Age of Apollo
A historical account of NASA's Apollo era engineers is presented. This book is based on interviews that were conducted with fifty-one 'typical' engineers
Nasa Engineers and the Age of Apollo by Sylvia D. Fries
TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 969 into unrealistic specifications and performance demands by the military and the airplane companies. They resisted plans for the engine labora tory to build wind tunnels for full-scale engine tests that they thought should be done by industry in order to protect proprietary interests. Dawson goes on to deal with the laboratory’s efforts, partly in response to its earlier lag in thejet engine field, to pione…
What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History
The Scope for Social Impact in Engineering Outcomes: A Diagrammatic Aid to Analysis
This Note presents ideas, and a resulting diagram, for use in analysis of social impact in the outcomes of engineering design. The diagram shows the degree of technical constraint in a design problem as a function of the independent variables type of design (radical to normal) and level of hierarchy within a systematic device (upper to lower). It is argued that technical constraint is greatest in normal design at the lower levels of hierarchy. On…
The Davis Wing and the Problem of Airfoil Design: Uncertainty and Growth in Engineering Knowledge
Walter G. Vincenti, The Davis Wing and the Problem of Airfoil Design: Uncertainty and Growth in Engineering Knowledge, Technology and Culture, Vol. 27, No. 4, Special Issue: Engineering in the Twentieth Century (Oct., 1986), pp. 717-758
Technological Knowledge without Science: The Innovation of Flush Riveting in American Airplanes, ca. 1930-ca. 1950
airplanes had rivets flush with the surface. To observers outside the airplane industry this change, if they noticed it at all, must have seemed straightforward and even trivial. In fact, since flush riveting had never before been used in plates as thin as those in aircraft, a great deal of learning was necessary. We may therefore ask, Why and how did the change to flush riveting take place? And what knowledge did the learning process generate th…
Control-Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics
The statement is sometimes made, usually in the abstract, that engineers think about their problems differently from scientists. This paper identifies a specific instance of that difference, traces its history, and analyzes the reasons behind it. I shall argue that the difference flows in the present case primarily from a combination of differences in the physical problems and economic constraints of science and engineering. The findings say some…
The Britannia Bridge: The Generation and Diffusion of Technological Knowledge
This book reconstructs the problem solving process involved in the building of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits in northwest Wales. The bridge completed the London to Dublin rail connection, and is a tubular structure of rectangular section large enough for a train to pass through, constructed of riveted wrought iron plate. It was the first encounter of engineers with thin-walled structures subject to buckling. The book traces the flow…
Boundaries, Contingencies and Rigor: Thoughts on Mathematics Prompted by a Case Study in Transonic Aerodynamics
A case study in the history of transonic aerodynamics, circa 1950, is used as a basis for reflecting on the character of the distinction between pure and applied mathematics, including the mathematics used by engineers. The case study is set against an historical background of disciplinary confrontation led by such eminent representatives of mathematics and aerodynamics as Garrett Birkhoff and Theodore von Kármán. The successful attempt to constr…
Technological Knowledge without Science: The Innovation of Flush Riveting in American Airplanes, ca. 1930-ca. 1950
airplanes had rivets flush with the surface. To observers outside the airplane industry this change, if they noticed it at all, must have seemed straightforward and even trivial. In fact, since flush riveting had never before been used in plates as thin as those in aircraft, a great deal of learning was necessary. We may therefore ask, Why and how did the change to flush riveting take place? And what knowledge did the learning process generate th…
The Technical Shaping of Technology: Real-World Constraints and Technical Logic in Edison's Electrical Lighting System
This paper discusses the role of the physical world and technical logic in constraining the shaping of technology. For illustration, Edison's development of the electrical incandescent-lighting system is used as a didactic example of how such shaping can significantly limit engineers' room to manoeuvre in arriving at their design decisions. With these results as springboard, observations and reflections are offered about real-world and other tech…
The Scope for Social Impact in Engineering Outcomes: A Diagrammatic Aid to Analysis
This Note presents ideas, and a resulting diagram, for use in analysis of social impact in the outcomes of engineering design. The diagram shows the degree of technical constraint in a design problem as a function of the independent variables type of design (radical to normal) and level of hierarchy within a systematic device (upper to lower). It is argued that technical constraint is greatest in normal design at the lower levels of hierarchy. On…
Engineering Theory in the Making: "Aerodynamic Calculation "Breaks the Sound Barrier
controls of the Bell XS-1 experimental aircraft, became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Aerodynamic design of this straight-wing monoplane was based on wind-tunnel tests of a model plus empirical knowledge, still embryonic, of airflow near sonic speed. Engineering theory, by contrast, took another five to six years to break the sound barrier by calculations for even a simple aerodynamic shape. The theoretical problem thus …
Control-Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics
The statement is sometimes made, usually in the abstract, that engineers think about their problems differently from scientists. This paper identifies a specific instance of that difference, traces its history, and analyzes the reasons behind it. I shall argue that the difference flows in the present case primarily from a combination of differences in the physical problems and economic constraints of science and engineering. The findings say some…
The Britannia Bridge: The Generation and Diffusion of Technological Knowledge
This book reconstructs the problem solving process involved in the building of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits in northwest Wales. The bridge completed the London to Dublin rail connection, and is a tubular structure of rectangular section large enough for a train to pass through, constructed of riveted wrought iron plate. It was the first encounter of engineers with thin-walled structures subject to buckling. The book traces the flow…
Control-Volume Analysis: A Difference in Thinking between Engineering and Physics
The statement is sometimes made, usually in the abstract, that engineers think about their problems differently from scientists. This paper identifies a specific instance of that difference, traces its history, and analyzes the reasons behind it. I shall argue that the difference flows in the present case primarily from a combination of differences in the physical problems and economic constraints of science and engineering. The findings say some…
Technological Knowledge without Science: The Innovation of Flush Riveting in American Airplanes, ca. 1930-ca. 1950
airplanes had rivets flush with the surface. To observers outside the airplane industry this change, if they noticed it at all, must have seemed straightforward and even trivial. In fact, since flush riveting had never before been used in plates as thin as those in aircraft, a great deal of learning was necessary. We may therefore ask, Why and how did the change to flush riveting take place? And what knowledge did the learning process generate th…
The Davis Wing and the Problem of Airfoil Design: Uncertainty and Growth in Engineering Knowledge
Walter G. Vincenti, The Davis Wing and the Problem of Airfoil Design: Uncertainty and Growth in Engineering Knowledge, Technology and Culture, Vol. 27, No. 4, Special Issue: Engineering in the Twentieth Century (Oct., 1986), pp. 717-758
The Scope for Social Impact in Engineering Outcomes: A Diagrammatic Aid to Analysis
This Note presents ideas, and a resulting diagram, for use in analysis of social impact in the outcomes of engineering design. The diagram shows the degree of technical constraint in a design problem as a function of the independent variables type of design (radical to normal) and level of hierarchy within a systematic device (upper to lower). It is argued that technical constraint is greatest in normal design at the lower levels of hierarchy. On…
What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History
What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies From Aeronautical History
Nasa Engineers and the Age of Apollo
A historical account of NASA's Apollo era engineers is presented. This book is based on interviews that were conducted with fifty-one 'typical' engineers
Nasa Engineers and the Age of Apollo by Sylvia D. Fries
TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 969 into unrealistic specifications and performance demands by the military and the airplane companies. They resisted plans for the engine labora tory to build wind tunnels for full-scale engine tests that they thought should be done by industry in order to protect proprietary interests. Dawson goes on to deal with the laboratory’s efforts, partly in response to its earlier lag in thejet engine field, to pione…
"The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop "Anomaly: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology
Dans les annees 1930, pratiquement tous les dessinateurs en aeronautique avaient adopte le train d'atterrissage rentrant. Un homme, Northrop (J.) avait cependant refuse ce modele. A travers son exemple, c'est l'histoire sociale de l'ingenierie qui est analysee
The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop “Anomaly”: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology
The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop ‘Anomaly”: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology WALTER G. VINCENTI Airplane designers today routinely provide their high-performance aircraft with a landing (and takeoff) gear that retracts inside the vehicle in flight. Few people apart from the designers give attention to that fact. As with other devices that attract little notice, however, the retractable landing gear has a his…
The Technical Shaping of Technology: Real-World Constraints and Technical Logic in Edison's Electrical Lighting System
This paper discusses the role of the physical world and technical logic in constraining the shaping of technology. For illustration, Edison's development of the electrical incandescent-lighting system is used as a didactic example of how such shaping can significantly limit engineers' room to manoeuvre in arriving at their design decisions. With these results as springboard, observations and reflections are offered about real-world and other tech…
Comment and Response on “The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear”
Communications COMMENT AND RESPONSE ON “THE RETRACTABLE AIRPLANE LANDING GEAR" To the Editor: It would be difficult to disagree with Edward W. Constant’s praise {Technology and Culture 35 [1994]: 447—49) of Walter Vincenti’s most recent contribution to our understanding of “what engineers know and how they know it,” “The Retractable Airplane Landing Gear and the Northrop ‘Anomaly’: Variation-Selection and the Shaping of Technology” ^Technology an…
Engineering Theory in the Making: "Aerodynamic Calculation "Breaks the Sound Barrier
controls of the Bell XS-1 experimental aircraft, became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Aerodynamic design of this straight-wing monoplane was based on wind-tunnel tests of a model plus empirical knowledge, still embryonic, of airflow near sonic speed. Engineering theory, by contrast, took another five to six years to break the sound barrier by calculations for even a simple aerodynamic shape. The theoretical problem thus …
Boundaries, Contingencies and Rigor: Thoughts on Mathematics Prompted by a Case Study in Transonic Aerodynamics
A case study in the history of transonic aerodynamics, circa 1950, is used as a basis for reflecting on the character of the distinction between pure and applied mathematics, including the mathematics used by engineers. The case study is set against an historical background of disciplinary confrontation led by such eminent representatives of mathematics and aerodynamics as Garrett Birkhoff and Theodore von Kármán. The successful attempt to constr…
On an Engineering Use of Engineering History
On an Engineering Use of Engineering History William M. Newman (bio) and Walter G. Vincenti (bio) This is a tale of how writing about the engineering past is benefiting the engineering present. Our story is not of the familiar kind, however, in which knowledge of the past failure or success of a particular device has influenced later, related designs. Instead, we deal here with a general methodology from the history of one engineering field and i…
Engineering (15 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Aeronautics (9 works) · Aerospace Engineering (6 works) · Aerospace Engineering (6 works) · Physics (5 works) · Airplane (3 works) · History and Developments in Astronomy (3 works) · History of Computing Technologies (3 works) · Landing gear (3 works)