"In engineering, you are peer-reviewed by reality."

My new @financialtimes.com piece on the engineer who scheduled the apocalypse for his own birthday—and what it reveals about the strange psychology of doomsday deadlines, and why they differ from the ones that actually govern our lives.

www.ft.com/content/3256...

#engineering #systemsthinking

Robert Goddard's Leadership: From Innovation to Isolation Goddard's rocket defied gravity, but his self-reliance trapped him. How can visionaries transition from lone genius to team leaders?

Do inventive engineers need to be lone geniuses or orchestra conductors? Guru Madhavan reflects on Robert Goddard and what Madhavan calls "The Alpha Trap" in this piece for @spectrum.ieee.org: spectrum.ieee.org/robert-godda...

Robert Goddard's Leadership: From Innovation to Isolation Goddard's rocket defied gravity, but his self-reliance trapped him. How can visionaries transition from lone genius to team leaders?

🚀 My latest in @spectrum.ieee.org on Robert Goddard: from innovation to isolation, and how leaders can escape the ALPHA TRAP—when the stubbornness that helps a pioneer survive skepticism begins to hinder collaboration as the work grows.

#engineering #leadership
spectrum.ieee.org/robert-godda...

🔧 Engineers see friction as a design feature, not a flaw. A shock absorber adds weight and complexity—yet without it, the suspension shakes itself apart. Not all resistance is waste, some of it protects systems from their own speed. #engineering

(1/3) Guru Madhavan ( @bioengineergm.bsky.social ) reverences the world and all that is in it. Guru is an engineer, but his conception of engineering is more vast than we typically assign to the role.

The Blue Box The story of Ed Link&#8212;the unsung engineer who opened the skies for aspiring pilots&#8212;and an ode to the art of ingenuity. <br /> <br /> &#8220;A wonderful and energizing book. . . . It is a...

📘 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗫 reinvigorates the legacy of an engineer who transformed our access to the skies, the stars, and the sea.

Preorder: wwnorton.com/books/978132...

And thank you, as always. 🙏🏼
#engineering #innovation #creativity #society #aviation #engineersweek #eweek2026

🧠 The confinement in his blue box gave trainees the consciousness of the many angles from which a problem can be approached. "If you are going to build these things," Link said, "you have to have the integrity to test them yourself."

🎨 Ed Link crossed domains unhindered by specialty credentials, like a cubist ushering art into its modern era, speaking less in words and more with his eloquence in engineering — from the Apollo missions to deep-sea submersibles.

🔵 The Wright Brothers made airplanes a cultural symbol, but Ed Link presented a principled protocol whose prime purpose was preparation.

✈️ A century ago, when aviation was still defined by accidents, Ed Link used piano parts to build a flight trainer. Dubbed the "blue box," its real breakthrough was not the device but the idea: flight training is as valuable as flight itself.

📦 THINKING INSIDE THE BOX.

📖 This #EngineersWeek, I'm pleased to announce 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘 𝗕𝗢𝗫: 𝗘𝗗 𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗞 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗜𝗥𝗧𝗛 𝗢𝗙 𝗠𝗢𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗡 𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 (
@wwnorton.com, April 26, 2026), drawn from "Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World."

Farmers use modern technology—such as drones—to help increase efficiency in farming and reduce costs. Stock photo.

In a Perspective, three engineers propose an expansive mode of engineering practice that seeks to reduce conflict. According to the authors, peace engineering requires competence, capability, and character. In PNAS Nexus: https://ow.ly/41L550Y7Fk1

If friction teaches us how to feel the world, what might we be losing by smoothing it all out?

Read the full story on #FTEdit 👉 The beauty of friction ft.trib.al/zzfAu7i

Then tell us where you stand in today's #FTEdit poll 🗳️ ft.trib.al/S8QnoII

The beauty of friction We are conditioned to treat resistance as a defect, but suppressing it comes with its own risks

The beauty of friction ft.trib.al/Z3XZ4fe | opinion

💡Good #engineering removes friction that impedes and conserves friction that informs. We often miss that nuance. But suppressing friction comes with its own risks; we lose the feedback that taught us how to feel the world.

⚙️ THE BEAUTY OF FRICTION

📰 In my latest for the @financialtimes.com, I explore why GLP-1 and GPT should force us to ask: which kinds of frictions deserve to stay?

🔗Read here (ft.com/content/f9d6...) or 👇🏼

Pleased to draw insights from Albrecht Dürer on how measurement must support human judgment, never supplant it.

Do numbers still mean what they’re supposed to measure? And what did Dürer understand about measurement 500 years ago that feels very relevant today?

🖼️ Selected woodcuts and prints by Dürer, all public domain, via the Art Institute of Chicago, The Met, and the British Museum.

✈️ Frequent-flyer “miles” don’t measure miles anymore. We still call them that anyway. It’s a telling inconsistency that hints at a larger issue.

🗞️ In my @financialtimes.com (@ftweekend.com) piece, starring Albrecht Dürer, I explore a few things.

🔗 Read here (ft.com/content/5e98...) or⬇️

The @raeng.org.uk honors the people who advance our profession, and it also honors the equations that have shaped the world. Along one of its walls, these equations show how we make sense of nature and improve life with precision and purpose.

Take a moment to look them up. #engineering

Stoppard and Wilson's conversation is about how both scales are real, & both deserve attention.
Ext Interview: davidsloanwilson.world/online-conte...
"Unto Others" by Sober & Wilson: www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...
"Multilevel Cultural Evolution" by Wilson et al:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This tension shows up in engineering too. Some focus on the user's immediate experience. Others think about the whole system. Good #engineering needs both perspectives, or you build something that feels right but doesn't work, or works but feels wrong.

Wilson examined altruism through actions and patterns that enable groups to endure. Stoppard held a more intimate, immediate view: while science may explain instinctive helping in bees or brainworms, it hasn't accounted for the consciously motivated kind unique to humans.

The hard problem: Tom Stoppard on the limits of what science can explain Can evolution explain acts of kindness, and morality? We arranged a debate between a sceptical Tom Stoppard and the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson. Stuart Jeffries acted as referee

"The Hard Problem" of User and System

Tom Stoppard's passing invites reflection on his 2015 exchange with evolutionist David Sloan Wilson. As Stoppard developed his play "The Hard Problem," Wilson's (and Elliott Sober's) work on altruism shaped his thinking.

www.theguardian.com/books/2015/m...

🙏🏼 This Thanksgiving I am grateful to be included in the fellowship of the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering (@raeng.org.uk), and for its strong partnership with the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Looking forward to the work ahead. #engineering

Photos: Rob Lacey.

Explore the AI-Z of Engineering to discover the amazing breadth of #engineering careers, and find out what is in your future.

thisisengineering.org.uk/ai-z-of-engi...

#NationalEngineeringDay

@raeng.org.uk

🏗️ Who keeps your world running? Honor them. Begin by seeing them.

🌏 In our pursuit of disruption, we often overlook the foundational care that makes progress possible. My new TEDx talk honors this forgotten courage, vital now more than ever.

▶️Watch + share: lnkd.in/enJxAQEP

#engineering #care

A thoughtful leadership exchange and common purpose.

The @raeng.org.uk, the @qeprize.bsky.social, and the U.S. National Academy of Engineering united in shared commitment to advance #engineering that improves lives, strengthens the profession, and celebrates the excellence that defines it.

🤖 WHEN AI DIES ⚰️

✨ In my latest column for the National Academy of Engineering’s Bridge magazine, prompted by the recent events around TikTok, I explore how we’ve built AI into a dazzling yet deficient genius, machines of vast memory but no legacy. 🚨

🔗 Read here: www.nae.edu/340912/Invis...