What Engineers Know and How They Know It: Analytical Studies from Aeronautical History

Walter G. Vincenti

History

A historian's study of how engineering knowledge is actually created, using five case studies from US aeronautics between 1908 and 1953 to argue that engineering generates its own knowledge rather than merely applying science. Beck recommends it for the way it reframes the relationship between science and engineering as a conversation rather than a one-way pipeline — a view that resonates with his empirical, experiment-driven approach to software.