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Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Review: The Perfectionists - How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

The Perfectionists is a scientific history of precision. It's a heck of a lot of fun to read, even about stuff that you might already know about. The book starts with a description of how precision came about, and a (now familiar to most engineers) description of the difference between precision and accuracy.

It then takes off into the develop of the steam engine (the first application of precision fittings), and then works its way into the increasing precision as required in the construction of guns, then automobiles (it turns out that the mass production assembly line required way more precision than the hand-built high end cars of the Model T era) and jet-engines. The jet-engine failure mode description is nothing short of astounding, and well worth your time. I'm afraid to even summarize it because I will get the description of the book wrong.

Then we get a great exposition about both the failure and the repair of the Hubble telescope, one of the most demanding repair jobs  you can imagine. The final chapters are devoted to the construction of silicon chips (which demand nanometer accuracy) and time keeping.

Simon Winchester covered this topics in a relatively short amount time, in readable, compelling prose, and without excess verbosity or inane, irrelevant personal stories. Recommended!

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