American Engineering (May Still Be) Number One

Regular readers of this blog know that I have pointed out the many respects in which America is not, or is no longer, Number 1 in the world.

The world's tallest building does not have a nice American-sounding name like Sears Tower or Empire State Building. It's the Burj Khalifa, and if that does not sound very American, it's because it's not. The building is in the Middle East.

It's been a while since the tallest building was in America, although three of the 10 tallest are in the US and, in fact, are all here in Chicago.

However, the Burj Khalifa was designed by the American architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Consider that the design of very tall buildings is as much, or more, a matter of engineering than architecture; and America quite possibly still has the best engineers in the world.

Even during the period when American cars seemed to be sadly suffering in the quality area, I had no doubt that General Motors (or, to those partisan to other US car manufacturers, insert that name here if you like) employed some of the best engineers in the world. On the other hand, it must be admitted that many of the engineering features found very widely in modern cars were not American inventions or developments: things like the Macpherson suspension (now pretty much universal and invented by a Scotsman), fuel injection, disc brakes, and overhead camshaft engines.

I think one reason why these were mostly developed in Europe is one simple word: racing. Most of those engineering features in the list above were developed by car makers who had a racing program, and they first appeared in race cars. By contrast, with the exception of Ford, which has raced on and off, American car makers have not built cars for racing in modern times.

There is no doubt (at least in this mind) that many countries such as China and India have given the world many great scientists and musicians, not to mention the European countries which led the world for so long. Japan has been a leader in electronics. On the other hand, there has been concern that America's educational system has its failings, especially when it comes to science and mathematics. But I think that America still knows how to produce good engineers, or else why would an achievement like the world's tallest building ultimately come out of America?

Some people, I'm sure, have come to feel that I like to engage in America-bashing. I like to think I'm very fair-minded and dole out both praise and criticism where it is due.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein