Applied Minds, Guru Madhavan
Applied Minds, Guru Madhavan
5 Rating(s)
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Applied Minds
How Engineers Think

Author: Guru Madhavan

Narrator: Sean Pratt

Unabridged: 5 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 08/01/2015


Synopsis

A journey inside the minds that build our world.

Dubai's Burj Khalifa-the world’s tallest building-looks nothing like Microsoft’s Office Suite, and digital surround sound doesn’t work like a citywide telecommunication grid. Yet these engineering feats have much in common.

Applied Minds explores the unique visions and mental tools of engineers to reveal the enormous-and often understated-influence they wield in transforming problems into opportunities. The resulting account pairs the innovators of modern history-Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, Steve Jobs-with everything from ATMs and the ZIP code system to the disposable diaper.

An engineer himself, Guru Madhavan introduces a flexible intellectual tool kit called modular systems thinking as he explains the discipline's penchant for seeing structure where there is none. The creations that result from this process express the engineer's answers to the fundamental questions of design: usefulness, functionality, reliability, and user friendliness.

Through narratives and case studies spanning the brilliant history of engineering, Madhavan shows how the concepts of prototyping, efficiency, reliability, standards, optimization, and feedback are put to use in fields as diverse as transportation, retail, health care, and entertainment.

Equal parts personal, practical, and profound, Applied Minds charts a path to a future where we apply strategies borrowed from engineering to create useful and inspired solutions to our most pressing challenges.

About Guru Madhavan

Guru Madhavan is the Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering. He is a prizewinning author of essays and books, including Applied Minds: How Engineers Think. He lives in Washington DC.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mara on October 04, 2016

Meh! It probably deserves 2.5 stars, but the whole affair just felt kind of wishy-washy— a mix of introducing lay-engineering terminology, and anecdotal narratives. I'd give it a 3-star rating, were it not for the fact that the author commits what, in my mind, is a cardinal sin. It's not PIN numb......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on December 28, 2015

Guru Madhavan is the sort of writer that promises much and delivers on little. Although the examples themselves may be interesting, he goes into so little detail on how the engineering mindset was used in each one that there is almost no point in talking about the example at all. This book is little......more

Goodreads review by Patrick on July 26, 2015

This is a gem. Madhavan shares the essence of an engineer's approach and predisposition to creating solutions, but what makes this even more worthwhile is he points out examples of how those abilities can be adopted and applied in many disciplines. As a software engineer, I thought it was well balanc......more

Goodreads review by Nitish Kumar Singh on August 26, 2017

It has interesting case studies like the development of google maps, burj khalifa, cleaning of Ganga river etc. It does have good suggestions for engineers, e.g. engineers naturally tend to focus first on the product and then on its users. For an anthropologist, it’s the exact reverse: people come f......more

Goodreads review by Kota on January 06, 2022

Letto dal punto di vista di una fisica, ero alla ricerca di spunti per degradare gli ingegneri e in effetti ce ne sono molti, anche se devo ammettere che alcuni meritano una certa riconoscenza. Il libro si sviluppa come una serie di episodi chiave per la storia dell'applicaizone dell'ingegneria, seg......more