Yankee Practice and Engineering Theory

The following is the story of an encounter between a Yankee inventor and engineering theory. Charles T. Porter was an American engineer of the heroic mold, self-taught, unorthodox, and independent, who delighted in boasting about his innocence in matters of theory and in joking about the impracticality of theoretical men, the uselessness of textbook science. His ventures into theory therefore present some intriguing ironies. It turns out that, in spite of his pose as an eminently practical man, he undertook those ventures mostly for an ancient but nonutilitarian motive, namely, intellectual curiosity, the innate urge to solve riddles. His theoretical methods were eccentric, but they achieved results, results that were not merely valid but significant. To Porter, theory even proved rewarding. While his industrial enterprises ended in disappointment, his theoretical efforts earned him international recognition, indeed veneration. In essence, the following story deals with the intellectual development of a single individual; it is therefore best told in the biographical mode

Dynamics (music) · Political science · Sociology · Steam engine · Yankee · Engineering · Law · Mechanical Engineering · Mechanics and Biomechanics Studies

• A Record for Invention

  Open Access•Reese V Jenkins, Keith A Nier•IEEE Transactions on Education•1984

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• Testing Power and Trust

  Open Access•David P Miller•History of Science•2012

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