Engineering and Design: Separated at Birth?

Today I proposed hosting a series of lectures, or Tech Talks as they're called at Google, titled "Design + Technology." My thinking is that design and engineering are really quite tightly intertwined. Two ends of a single spectrum, with a bunch of overlap in the middle. Design is generative and problem-setting, and engineering is analytical and problem-solving. One with out the other is like corn flakes without milk, like lobster without butter, like a rich man without money. You get the picture.

So, what do I see in the New York Times tonight but an article about a new show at the Museum of Modern Art. The theme? Science and design. Take a look:
Where Science and Design Collide from the New York Times. An excerpt:

Dr. Mandelbrot, a professor emeritus of mathematical science at Yale, spoke with joy in an interview about the new exhibition, but also with an air that suggested he was wondering why it had taken so long for the world to catch up to him. "I have been fighting on that front for a very long time," he said.

Dr. Mandelbrot said the separation of science and aesthetics had always puzzled and frustrated him, though now “the separation is decreasing, or vanishing,” as more people find ways to bridge the gap.

Mr. Mandelbrot and I agree on this one. For sure. Mandelbrot, if I'm not mistaken, discovered fractals after seeing the image of England's coastline, published in a geography journal that was being discarded. Who says that science and technology have moved beyond the scale of the human eye, hand, ear, or heart? They havn't, and I doubt they ever will.

posted by Stefan Smagula at 11:58 PM