Tag Archives: education

Virtual reality and economic injustice in a world with limits

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Decorative photograph of a pile of carved stonesIt is sometimes suggested that materialism and greed are key drivers of our social and political system that largely refuses to acknowledge that we live in a world of limits.  However, Rowan Williams has proposed that we have a ‘culture that is resentful about material reality, hungry for anything and everything that distances us from the constraints of being a physical animal subject to temporal processes, to uncontrollable changes and to sheer accident.’  In other words, it is our desire to be in control of our lives and surroundings that drives us to accumulate wealth and build our strongholds.  Education and learning lead to an understanding of the complexity of the world, a realisation that we cannot control the world and perhaps to unavoidable insecurity, particularly for those people who thought they had some distance between themselves and uncontrollable events.  It is more comfortable to believe that we are in control, adhere to the current out-dated paradigm, and ignore evidence to the contrary. This is equivalent to living in a virtual reality.  This approach not only accelerates uncontrollable changes to the planet but also leads to economic disparities because, as Williams states, economic justice will only arrive when everyone recognises a shared vulnerability and limitation in a world that is not infinite.

Source: Rowan Williams, Faith in the public square, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Image: a pile of carved stones in the cloisters of Hereford cathedral where I bought a second-hand copy of ‘Faith in the public square’ while on holiday [see ‘Personale mappa mundi‘ on November 1st, 2023].

Reasons I became an engineer: #2

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Decorative photograph showning the entrance to the Engineering Faculty at the University of SheffieldThis is the second in a series of posts reflecting on my route to becoming an engineer.  In the first one I described how I chose a degree in mechanical engineering so that I would have appreciation of the technical difficulties that engineers might cite when requesting operational changes for a ship that I hoped one day to command [see ‘Reasons I became an engineer: #1’ on April 19th, 2023].  I think I selected mechanical engineering because it provided a broader engineering education than other engineering degrees and I did not know enough to choose any other branch of engineering.  I went to the University of Sheffield and during vacations returned to the Royal Navy serving onboard HMS Active and flew out to join her wherever she was in the world, except when I went to the Royal Navy Engineering College at Manadon outside Plymouth to undertake engineering applications training.  I cast a brass nameplate, which I still have in my office, and made a toolbox that I also still have at home.  After graduation, I returned full-time to the Royal Navy as a sub-lieutenant and started my career as a naval officer in the executive or seaman branch.  However, I did not settle and missed engineering so I asked for and was refused a transfer to the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors who work on the design and development of warships.  As a result, I resigned my commission in the Royal Navy and got a job as a research assistant in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield where I registered for a PhD in engineering.  I had taken a positive step towards becoming an engineer but perhaps on the premise of what I did not want to do rather than what I did want to do.

Reasons I became an engineer: #1

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Photograph of aircraft carrier in heavy seas for decorative purposes onlyThis is the first in a series of posts in which I am going to reflect on my route to becoming an engineer.  These events happened around forty years ago so inevitably my recollections probably have more in common with folklore than reliable history.  Nevertheless, I hope they might be of interest.

I was good at mathematics at school but also geography and when required to specialise at the age of sixteen would have preferred to study mathematics, geography and perhaps economics.  However, my parents and my school, had other ideas and decided that partnering chemistry and physics with mathematics would give me more opportunities in terms of university courses and careers.  Physics was manageable but Chemistry was a complete mystery to me.  I left school shortly before my eighteenth birthday and joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman.  I went to Dartmouth Naval College where, as part of my training to become a seaman officer, I was taught to march, navigate, fight fires, sail yachts, drive motor launches and fly helicopters as well as spending time with the Royal Marines.  After my basic naval training, which included time at sea on HMS Hermes, I went to University sponsored by the Royal Navy with a free choice of subject to study.  So, I chose Mechanical Engineering because I thought as an officer on the bridge of a ship, perhaps eventually in command of a ship, it would be useful to understand what the engineers were talking about when they asked for a change in operations due to technical difficulties.  At that stage in my life, I had no intention of becoming an engineer, but with hindsight it was my first step in that direction.

Celebrating engineering success

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Today is National Engineering Day [see ‘My Engineering Day’ on November 4th, 2021] whose purpose is to highlight to society how engineers improve lives.  I would like to celebrate the success of two engineers who are amongst the seventy-two engineers elected to the fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering this year.  Chris Waldon is leading the design and delivery of a prototype fusion energy plant, targeting 2040, and a path to the commercial viability of fusion.  This is a hugely ambitious undertaking that has the potential to transform our energy supply.  He is the first chief engineer to move the delivery date to within twenty years rather than pushing it further into the future.  My other featured engineer is Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, a leading advocate of innovations in engineering education that focus on encouraging enterprising and socially-conscious approaches to designing and delivering engineering solutions.  These are important developments because we urgently need a more holistic, sustainable and liberal engineering education that produces engineers equipped to tackle the complex challenges facing society.  Of course I am biased having worked and published with both of them.  However, I am not alone in my regard for them and will be joining other Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering at a dinner in London next week to celebrate their achievements.