September 26, 2003

10am – 12pm, Scaife Hall 125

Carnegie Mellon University

"Why There Is No Perfect Design"

Presented by Henry Petroski, Duke University

Design involves constraints, some of which contradict others. If all constraints cannot be satisfied exactly, choices must be made. This naturally leads to compromise, which means nothing's perfect. Illustrative examples will be presented.

Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and Professor of History, Chairs the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University. Professor Petroski has written on many aspects of engineering, including design, success and failure, error and judgment, the history of bridges, and the use of case studies in education and practice. His latest book, a history of books as artifacts and the structures that have housed them from ancient times to the computer age, is entitled The Book on the Bookshelf.

Henry Petroski has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a Fellow of the National Humanities Center. Among his other honors are the Ralph Coats Roe Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Civil Engineering History and Heritage Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, honorary degrees from Clarkson University and Trinity College (Hartford, Conn.), and distinguished engineering alumnus awards from both Manhattan College and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

The event schedule is as follows:

10:00-10:30

Reception

10:30-11:30

Seminar in Scaife 125

11:30-12:00

Panel discussion with Prof. Petroski,

Prof. David Hounshell, Carnegie Mellon History and Social and Decision Sciences, and Prof. Craig Vogel, Carnegie Mellon School of Design

October 24, 2003

10am – 12pm, Scaife Hall 125

Carnegie Mellon University

"A Theory of Complexity and Applications"

Presented by Nam Suh, MIT

One of the major goals of engineering is to reduce the complexity of engineered systems by reducing the time-independent real complexity and by eliminating the time-independent imaginary complexity. To reduce the time-dependent complexity, a system with a time-dependent combinatorial complexity may be transformed into a system with a periodic complexity by introducing functional periodicity. Examples from diverse fields, including manufacturing, tribology, biology, materials, and socio-economic areas will be presented to illustrate the utility of the complexity theory and the concept of functional periodicity.

10:00-10:30	Reception
10:30-11:30	Seminar in Scaife 125
11:30-12:00	Panel discussion

November 7, 2003

10am – 12pm, Scaife Hall 125

Carnegie Mellon University

“Observations of New Particle Formation and Growth Rates in the Atmosphere”

Presented by Peter McMurry, Mechanical Engineering Chair, Minnesota

Nucleation may be an important global source of cloud condensation nuclei, and may play an important role in regulating climate. In this lecture, observations of particle production and growth rates in various locations will be summarized. It will also summarize what new analytical capabilities have taught us about the formation and growth of particles by nucleation in the atmosphere. In particular, the extent to which measurements are consistent with predictions of collision-limited particle formation and growth will be discussed.

Peter H. McMurry is the Kenneth T. Whitby Professor and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He completed his Ph.D. at Caltech in 1977 and has been at Minnesota since then. His research focuses on the measurement and behavior of gas-borne particles with applications to the atmosphere, semiconductor processing, and materials synthesis. McMurray’s atmospheric research has focused on the development of techniques to measure fundamental aerosol properties (density, refractive index, water content, etc.) and the formation of new particles by homogeneous nucleation.

10:00-10:30	Reception
10:30-11:30	Seminar in Scaife 125
11:30-12:00	Panel discussion with