Noted engineer and failure analyst Henry Petroski spoke recently as a part of the Design Matters series of lectures at UIUC. He has distilled millenia of human innovation into the following short sentences:
Perfection does not exist.
Form follows failure.
Criticism leads invention.
Design begets design.
Good betters best.
Problems persist.
Invention thrives.
Technology evolves.
I’m not sure there’s much I can possibly add to that…
