A bridge too far

The history of engineering, as that of civilisation itself, is clearly one of both successes and failures, and paradoxically the failures are really the more useful component of the mix. Although examples of good engineering practice and grand technical successes can certainly serve as paradigms of good judgement and things to emulate, great engineers and great people generally do not become so merely by reading biographies of great men and women. And great new engineering achievements do not come to be so merely by inference from an extrapolation of successful precedents.