Brunel - Past Perfect
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007As some of you know, Brunel is a hero of mine. Tonight is a perfect time to relate some of the reasons why.
“Many of [Brunel’s] greatest creations still exist (Clifton Suspension Bridge, Tamar Bridge, the Great Britain, etc.), and are aesthetically pleasing as well as practical and long lasting. The Great Eastern is perhaps his greatest work.” (attr. School of Computing, University of Dundee).
My favorite anecdote about Brunel was that his propeller design for the Great Britain steamship were compared to a “near-perfect” CAD propeller design, “and the extraordinary thing is that a modern propeller, designed by a computer, in the 21st century, is only 5% more efficient than the propeller on the Great Britain.” - Jeremy Clarkson.
The mind. Unleashed.
Also, for any of those working with me in my current endeavor, Brunel offers his words of defiance to the spiritually small and politically tyrannical.
Specifically, this quote was directed at the idea of government prescribing regulations for bridge design in 1847: “In other words, embarrass and shackle the progress of improvements of tomorrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices and errors of today.”