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How so? In my experience academics are far more likely to sweep big practical issues under the rug because they're primarily concerned with being something work
by rcxdude 1mo ago
How so? In my experience academics are far more likely to sweep big practical issues under the rug because they're primarily concerned with being something working one so they can write a paper, as opposed to making a product that has to work in practice.
(It is surprisingly common to have delusions about the scale of engineering problems in management, which causes problems even when it doesn't explode into outright fraud. I've had management insist on pursuing a project that was already quite risky and difficult in its own right but which also needed a technology that just didn't exist yet to actually be usable by customers in the field: mostly on the back of some theoretical calculations by some acadamics that masked big underlying problems. The issue was pretty obvious but just subtle enough to be easy to convince yourself it wasn't that hard)
- nl 1mo agoScience is discovery of new knowledge (that "pesky chemistry" which is literally don't know how to do). Engineering is applying that knowledge in a effective and efficient manner. Engineering is something that money and time can fix. There are less guarantees with science.
- rcxdude 1mo agoEh, In my experience this is not a clean distinction. My work is generally described as engineering and it often involves discovering new things about the technology, with a similar level of uncertainty. (and it often needs to be a lot more rigorous than a lot of the papers I read in the same field).
- nl 1mo agoOf course. It's the real world, there is no bright-line. But broadly if you are dealing with building something in a world with constraints (time, materials, money, speed, safety) then it's more engineering. If you are studying how things work to try to build something without these constraints without then it's applied science. If you are developing new theories then that is fundamental science. So yes, your criticism ("far more likely to sweep big practical issues under the rug because they're primarily concerned with being something working") is accurate but by design, not a weakness. > the applied scientist is by definition not interested in changing reality, only in studying, explaining, and predicting it. The engineer, on the other hand, accepts the explanations and predictions of the applied scientist, and then acts to change reality to achieve some goal https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/PCEEA/article/view/4002/4050 https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/PCEEA/article/view/...