A man’s search for cash from a bank on a Saturday afternoon had the ripple effect of the creation of the ATM machine.
This happened when Scottish engineer John Shepherd-Barron took the idea of chocolate dispensing machines and created the ATM.
Be it the planes and trains you take or the bridges you whiz by… they are all a result of engineering techniques. Engineering plays a vital role in our lives. It also is the inspiration for Guru Madhavan’s debut novel Applied Minds How Engineers Think .
Guru, an engineer turned author, explores the visions and mental tools of engineers to reveal the enormous influence they wield in transforming problems into opportunities.
“Engineering is rooted in human ingenuity. I wanted to showcase how it changes lives. I wanted to present it in the social realm, away from the technical aspects of making things work. The book deals with the main questions of design: usefulness, functionality, reliability, and user friendliness.”
The book, Guru says, is peopled by a range of interesting characters and situations. “I have included a range of people and systems, from the inventors of the disposable diapers to the creators of complex tools that govern many of the things we use on a daily basis. In one of the chapters, I have also explained the complexities involved in cleaning the river Ganga, that is a vital resource for most people living in the Northern plains. I also offer a range of engineering solutions to clean the river that has become dirty and polluted. I went to Benaras and met a cross section of people to find solutions for this problem.”
Explaining the engineering mindset, Guru adds: “The engineering mindset enables you to bring structure and helps you deal with constraints. A good engineer is always thinking about what happens to the system when you change something. How are things connected? It is a mindset rooted in continuous learning and improvement.”
To a question if writing the book was difficult, Guru said: “Not really. I wrote the book in the way I would construct an electronic circuit. I had to understand the inputs, specifications and the outputs which serve as the characters, the plot line and the message respectively in a book. As good engineers and writers know, every component (sentence) in the circuit (book) should be useful and serve its purpose. This was the principle I stuck with in the three years it took me to pen the book.”
