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 Other books in the 101 Things I Learned® series
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Copyright © 2013, 2018 by Matthew Frederick

Excerpt from 101 Things I Learned® in Advertising School copyright ©

2018 by Matthew Frederick
Excerpt from 101 Things I Learned® in Urban Design School copyright ©
2018 by Matthew Frederick

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New
York.
crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin

Random House LLC.

101 Things I Learned is a registered trademark of Matthew Frederick.

Originally published in the United States in slightly different form by

Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, in 2013.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon

request.

ISBN 9781524761967
Ebook ISBN 9781524761974

Illustrations by Matthew Frederick

Cover illustration by Matthew Frederick

v5.1
prh
 From John
To my family
Contents
Author's Note
Acknowledgments

1 | Civil engineering is the grandparent of all engineering.

2 | Engineering succeeds and fails because of the black
box.
3 | The heart of engineering isn’t calculation; it’s problem
solving.
4 | You are a vector.
5 | Every problem is built on familiar principles.
6 | Every problem is unique.
7 | “Inside every large problem is a small problem
struggling to get out.”
8 | An object receives a force, experiences stress, and
exhibits strain.
9 | When a force acts on an object, three things can
happen.
10 | As a force acting on a fixed object increases, three
things happen.
11 | Four material characteristics
12 | Materials compete.
13 | A battery works because of corrosion.
14 | Harder materials don’t ensure longevity.
15 | Soldiers shouldn’t march across a bridge.
16 | Why Galloping Gertie collapsed
17 | Softer materials aren’t always more protective.
18 | Buildings want to float.
19 | Automobiles want to fly.
20 | The ground effect
21 | A roundabout is the safest, most efficient intersection.
22 | Friction is the enemy of a rolling object, but it is what
allows it to roll.
23 | Accuracy and precision are different things.
24 | There’s always a trade-off.
25 | Quantification is approximation.
26 | Random hypothesis #1
27 | Engineers wear a belt and suspenders.
28 | A triangle is inherently stable.
29 | The complexity of a truss is a product of simplicity.
30 | Structures are built from the bottom up, but designed
from the top down.
31 | The contents of a building might weigh more than the
building.
32 | A skyscraper is a vertically cantilevered beam.
33 | Earthquake design: let it move a lot or not at all.
34 | Make sure it doesn’t work the wrong way.
35 | Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse
36 | The best beam shape is an I—or better yet, an I.
37 | Get even more out of a beam.
38 | “Inventing is the mixing of brains and materials. The
more brains you use, the less materials you need.”
39 | A masonry arch gets stronger as it does more work.
40 | The four eras of the wall
41 | The first building code
42 | Drawings explain only some things.
43 | Concrete doesn’t dry; it cures.
44 | Concrete and cement are different things.
45 | Concrete and steel are ancient, not modern, materials.
46 | 3 stages of manufacturing
47 | More inspections and fewer inspections both produce
more errors.
48 | Early decisions have the greatest impact.
49 | Working faster doesn’t save money.
50 | Perfect reliability isn’t always desirable.
51 | Human time to failure is 1,000 years.
52 | Few customers will pay for a perfectly engineered
product.
53 | The Ford Pinto wasn’t unsafe.
54 | Be careful when asking a part to do more than one
thing.
55 | Design a part to fail.
56 | Keep one hand in your pocket.
57 | Keep one leg still.
58 | How to read a topographic plan
59 | Balance cut and fill.
60 | Work with the natural order.
61 | Air is a fluid.
62 | Heat cannot be destroyed, and cold cannot be created.
63 | A radiator doesn’t just radiate.
64 | The most reliable source of heating and cooling is the
earth.
65 | Available solar energy is 50,000 times our energy need.
66 | The environmental engineering paradigm shift
67 | Ten Commandments for Environmental Engineers
68 | Water is constant.
69 | Water recycling
70 | Wastewater treatment imitates nature.
71 | Don’t presume the solution.
72 | Think systematically.
73 | “We looked at the program and divided it into the
essential elements, which turned out to be thirty-odd.”
74 | Think systemically.
75 | A successful system won’t necessarily work at a
different scale.
76 | The behavior of simple systems and complex systems
can be predicted. In-between systems: not so much.
77 | Stop a crack by rounding it off.
78 | Seek negative feedback.
79 | Enlarge the problem space.
80 | The Tunkhannock Viaduct
81 | Almost everything is a chemical, and almost every
chemical is dangerous.
82 | A chemical equation isn’t exactly an equation.
83 | Equilibrium is a dynamic, not static, state.
84 | An electric current works only if it can return to its
source.
85 | A seesaw works by balancing moments.
86 | Center of gravity
87 | It’s a column, not a support column.
88 | Articulate the why, not just the what.
89 | All engineers calculate. Good engineers communicate.
90 | How to read, but not necessarily name, a cantilever
bridge
91 | Random hypothesis #2
92 | Now you’re the chord. Next you’ll be the joint.
93 | The engineering of satisfaction
94 | Engineering events are human events.
95 | There’s design besides the design.
96 | Identify a benchmark against which outcomes will be
measured.
97 | “The most important thing is to keep the most
important thing the most important thing.”
98 | While getting the one thing right, do more than one
thing.
99 | The fix for an apparent engineering problem might not
be an engineering fix.
100 | Engineering usually isn’t inventing the wheel; it’s
improving the wheel.
101 | The Great Continuum

Notes
Index
About the Authors
Sneak Peek
Author’s Note

Engineers view their profession as fascinating, creative, and

full of interesting challenges. Those outside it often regard it
as repetitive, mechanical, and frustrating.
What is evident from both perspectives is that engineering
is complex. It requires intensive study in mathematics,
physics, and chemistry, which fills most of the first two
years of the college curriculum. While focusing on these
concerns, the curriculum tends to provide very little
context. When I was a beginning engineering student, I was
frustrated that the calculations and abstract concepts I was
learning in the classroom were difficult to tie to the real
world. The engineering curriculum presented a lot of trees,
and very little forest.
101 Things I Learned in Engineering School flips this
around. It introduces engineering largely through its
context, by emphasizing the common sense behind some of
its fundamental concepts, the themes intertwined among its
many specialties, and the simple abstract principles that can
be derived from real-world circumstance. It presents, I
believe, some clear glimpses of the forest as well as the
trees within it.
 It is my hope that this book will interest and enlighten
college students seeking context for their developing
mathematical and scientific knowledge, inspire practicing
engineers to reflect on the subtle relationships in their field,
and encourage the layperson to see the engineering world
as engineers do: fascinating, creative, challenging,
collaborative, and unfailingly rewarding.

John Kuprenas
Acknowledgments
From John
Thanks to Weston Hester, Keith Crandall, Ben Gerwick,
William C. Ibbs, Povindar K. Mehta, David Blackwell, the
inspiration of the books at Skylight and Powell’s, and the
conversations at Figaro Café.

From Matt
Thanks to Tricia Boczkowski, Regina Brooks, Nancy Byrnes,
Sorche Fairbank, Venkataramana Gadhamshetty, Harmonie
Hawley, Matt Inman, Andrea Lau, Dave McNeilly, Amanda
Patten, Angeline Rodriguez, Aaron Santos, Simon Schelling,
Molly Stern, and Rick Wolff. Special thanks to Marshall
Audin, Myev Bodenhofer, and David Mallard for their ideas,
help, and support.
 1

Civil engineering is the

grandparent of all engineering.
In its early days during the Roman Empire, civil engineering
was synonymous with military engineering. Their kinship
was still strong when the first engineering school in America
was founded in 1802 at the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, New York. USMA graduates planned, designed, and
supervised the construction of much of the nation’s early
infrastructure, including roads, railways, bridges, and
harbors, and mapped much of the American West.
1
 2

Engineering succeeds and fails

because of the black box.
Engineering is a field of specialties, with different individuals
or teams working on different aspects of a project. A black
box conceptually contains the knowledge and processes of
an engineering specialty. On multidisciplinary design teams,
the output from one discipline’s black box becomes the
input for the black boxes of one or more other disciplines.
The designer of a fuel system, for example, works within a
“fuel system black box” that produces an output for the
engine designer; the engine designer’s black box outputs to
the automatic transmission designer, and so on.
Design solutions aren’t created linearly, however; teams
work in complex, interconnected ways. Hence, the black
box model works best when employed as a momentary ideal
that is adjusted and redefined throughout the design
process as constraints become evident, opportunities
emerge, prototypes are tested, and goals are clarified. It
fails when expected to be permanent and orderly.
2
 3

The heart of engineering isn’t

calculation; it’s problem solving.
School may teach the numbers first, but calculation is
neither the front end of engineering nor its end goal.
Calculation is one means among many to finding a solution
that provides useful, objectively measurable improvement.
3
 4

You are a vector.

A force is expressed graphically by a vector. A vector’s
length represents its magnitude, and its direction is given in
relation to the x, y, and z axes. Every person has a gravity
force vector with a magnitude (weight) measured in pounds
or newtons, and a direction toward the center of the earth.
Any single vector can be replaced by more than one
component vectors, and vice versa, as long as they yield an
equivalent net result.
4
 5

Every problem is built on familiar

principles.
Every problem has embedded in it a “hook”—a familiar,
elemental concept of statics, physics, or mathematics.
When overwhelmed by a complex problem, identify those
aspects of it that can be grasped with familiar principles and
tools. This may be done either intuitively or methodically, as
long as the tools you ultimately use to solve the problem are
scientifically sound. Working from the familiar will either
point down the path to a solution, or it will suggest the new
tools and understandings that need to be developed.
5
 6

Every problem is unique.

Engineering problem solving relies on the familiar, but
invention is also called for. Some problem-solving tools are
developed through rote and repetition, some emerge
intuitively, some rote-learned tools become intuitive over
time, and some come out of necessity and even
desperation. Add the tools you develop while solving each
problem to your toolbox, to use on future problems. More
important, add to your toolbox the methods by which you
discovered the new tools.
6
 7

“Inside every large problem is a

small problem struggling to get
out.”
—TONY HOARE
7
 8

An object receives a force,

experiences stress, and exhibits
strain.
The words “force,” “stress,” and “strain” are used somewhat
interchangeably in the lay world, and may even be used with
less than ideal rigor by engineers. However, they have
different meanings.

A force, often called a “load,” exists external to and acts

upon a body, and can cause it to change speed, direction,
or shape. Examples of forces include water pressure on a
submarine hull, snow loads on a bridge, and wind loads on
the sides of a skyscraper.

Stress is the “experience” of a body—­its internal resistance

to an external force acting on it. Stress is force divided by
area, and is expressed in units such as pounds per square
inch.

Strain is a product of stress. It is the measurable

percentage of deformation or change in an object, such as
an increase or decrease in length.
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