| I don't understand people who aren't fascinated by engineering generally and infrastructure specifically. I love knowing how stuff works, even if I don't understand it at the technical level an engineer does. So much of what we use we take for granted, but it really is worth seeing what goes into making potable water come out of your tap. In middle school, I toured the Baldwin water plant in Cleveland, OH. There is a huge hall full of sand filters that filter out the schmutz after the water is chemically treated. It's one thing to know abstractly that drinking water is filtered through sand to make it drinkable. It's another to see the process in action on a grand scale. In Boston, I highly recommend seeing the Chestnut Hill pumping station, which pumped water from the Chestnut Hill reservoir. It long predates the availability of sufficiently powerful electric motors, and the three steam engines are a testament to how much work went into pumping water around prior to the development of electric pumps. I believe the last of the steam engines was decommissioned in the early '70s. I'm told the pumping capacity has been replaced by electric pumps in a single 3m square building, which somehow doesn't convey the same sense of awe and indebtedness to the engineers who make running water possible. Gotta share a longtime favorite joke: What's the difference between civil (structural) engineers and mechanical engineers? Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets. |