Newest Eyrie

[Black Aeronaut]

Hrm... interesting little tidbit on the forum over there:

>As a T-shirt of my wife's says, "A scientist discovers that which
>exists, an engineer creates that which never was."
>
>Perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, but still pretty good for a
>basic way to tell the difference. And I suspect that it's easier (and
>likely) for a scientist to engage in a little engineering here and
>there (e.g., putting a new discovery to use somehow) than it is for an
>engineer to accidentally engage in some science
Probably true, though in the Enlightenment and early Industrial Revolution, a lot of science was retroactively driven by technology that was originally devised by empirical trial and error. Our modern understanding of gas pressure and so forth, for instance, was formulated at least in part by people looking at early steam engines and thinking, Okay, I get that it works, that's plain to see, but why is it working?
--G.

Now, my mother, who is married to a highly experienced printed circuit board designer, will often say that, "Engineers dream it, but the designers actually build it." That is to say, an engineer will come up with the idea, but leave the smaller details to a staff of designers such as circuit layout.
Tony Stark is not exempt. Only instead of an army of designers, he has a highly advanced computer system to work out all the little stuff for him, leaving him free to create and refine as he sees fit.