THE NOBEL PROFESSION
Robert B. Johnson, S.E., PE., Eng-i
We Get No Recognition (paraphrase the late Rodney Dangerfield)
The Entertainment Awards Season has commenced. The Peoples Choice have been awarded. So have the Golden Globes. Recently the Grammys(tm) were presented. It is then on to the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The media frenzy surrounding the Academy AwardsTM is just beginning. Various media outlets will feature numerous stories of the awards. All this hoopla surrounding a little statuette for a performance in a motion picture. Even what the actors will wear will make for news.
All the above is news????
The Other Academy Award!
The award will be presented at a gala dinner in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 17, 2009. The DRAPER PRIZE is one of the world's largest and most prestigious engineering award. The award will be given to an engineer or engineering team who have contributed to the advancement of engineering knowledge and the betterment of the mankind through technology.
(Editors: see calendar of events
http://www.nae.edu/nae/naehome.nsf/weblinks/NAEW-4NHMFK?OpenDocument
The Draper Prize is sometimes referred by many as the absent Nobel Prize of Engineering. (Interesting fact: Nobel was a self taught-trained mechanical/chemical engineer but there is no Nobel Prize for engineering. News reports of the past winners of THE DRAPER PRIZE have been sporadic at best while the Nobel Prize generally makes news, sometimes on the front pages of newspapers.
The next time you turn on your computer how might give thanks Robert H. Dennard. Like so so so many Draper Prize recipients before him he is unknown to the public. Yet without Dennard’s achievement your computer would not function.
His invention and contributions to the development of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), used universally in computers and other data processing and communication systems has made out modern technical world possible.
The availability of cheap, high-density memory that has come about due to the invention of the DRAM cell has enabled tremendous growth in computing over the past 40 years. The DRAM market is estimated to have totaled $420 billion in sales through 2008.
(supplemental)
The National Academy of Engineering in presenting the 2009 DRAPER PRIZE, the nation's highest awards for engineering, to Robert H. Dennard winning a half million dollars and the recognition of this nation's nearly 2 millions engineers are the real heroes. Unfortunately this major technology award appears to have been ignored by the most media outlets.
WHY?
Will your paper cover the winner of the 2009 Prize?? or least do a follow-up report prior winners?
So now, in an effort to help people understand just how important engineers are, engineers are reaching out across the nation (and this newspaper) to get this message to the press.
http://www.todaysengineer.org/2008/Dec/understanding.asp
I, for one, am thrilled that this message is getting out in engineering journals and periodicals. But, I am sorry that the media thinks that these messages are just not important enough to ever cover on their own and get out to the public in general circulation publications.
Lest you think these are the rantings of some disgruntled engineer I offer the following:
Let's have one year in which the movie theaters are closed and present no Academy Award's TM. Would our lives really change that much? Let's not present awards to the other entertainment celebrities.
On the other hand let's abandoned the use of the technology pioneered by past winners of the DRAPER PRIZE. No more time-release medical drugs to cure our ailments, pain and suffering. Robert Langer was the winner of the 2002 Draper Prize. For some of the past winners of the Draper Prize, Let's abandon the use of their pioneering engineering achievements. No more integrated circuits (1989 Draper Prize to Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce) to power-control most of our electronic devices. Let's stop all jet transport as the 1991 Draper Prize winners (Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle) were the engineer- inventors of the jet engine. Lest we complain about high gas prices, the 1997 winner, Vladimir Haensel, won the DRAPER Prize for the process (platforming) that produces low cost- high octane gasoline. If you use a Digital camera you can thank Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for the invention of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies. What about turning of the INTERNET! -Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock and Lawrence Roberts were 2001 winners for creating the INTERNET then in 2007 Tim Berners-Lee won the Draper Prize for creating the World Wide Web!
Have I made my case?
Let's begin to recognize who are the real leaders and heroes in our society. When we will begin to recognize them for their accomplishments?
Engineering is arguably, the source of the most direct and personal improvements in the quality of our lives than any other profession, yet the public (and most commonly the news media) overlook engineering awards and achievements, or give oblique credit to scientists or doctors or politicians for the advances in improving the quality of our lives. We celebrate entertainers and athletes for their achievements who contribute little if anything to the improvement of the human condition, yet regularly ignore engineers and engineering who have built our modern society.
The future of America rests NOT with those athletic superstars or entertainment celebrities garnering headlines and idolized by today's youth but with those scientists, technologists and engineers charting the new information age.
Submitted for your consideration
Robert B. Johnson, SE, PE
m.SEAOI www.seaoi.org
f.ASCE www.asce.org
cc. National Academy of Engineering
Editor's Note: Selected references:
"At Last, an Engineers Prize", Commentary Chicago SUN-TIMES, October 7, 1988
A similar version of this editorial appeared in the Chicago SUN-TIMES,
October 19, 1992.
The Chicago SUN-TIMES (through an Associated Press story, Thursday, October 7, 1993) did announce the 1993 winner in an article buried on page 11, albeit 50 words, 2 sentences long, while the Nobel Prize winners received front page coverage. I did not see any mention of the 1995 Draper Prize which was officially presented during National Engineers Weekr, February 20, 1996.
On October 18, 1997, Sun-Times Editorial Board member, Dennis Byrne had a commentary, "Well-Kept Secrets" noting the lack of press coverage of the 1997 Draper Prize Recipient, Vladimir Haensel
On October 19, 1999 the Wall Street Journal published a letter to the editor by Professor Henry Petroski, Duke University, Captioned, "ENGINEERING IS NOBEL TOO". In the commentary Professor Petroski decried the lack of news coverage of the Draper Prize noting. "It is engineering, not science, that bring the greatest benefits to mankind"
February 22, 2003 Washington Times
Nobels and Knaves
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030222-22957647.htm (removed)
Selected Websites;
Summary of Past Recipients:
http://www.nae.edu/nae/awardscom.nsf/weblinks/NAEW-4NHMN6?OpenDocument
For a similar piece: "EYES ON THE WRONG PRIZE"
www.nspe.org/etweb/15-02viewpoint.asp ( removed)
Engineers Would Enjoy Some Appreciation
http://w3.mit.edu/newsoffice/tt/1990/feb07/22839.html
additionally
http://www.todaysengineer.org/careerfocus/july01te/july01depts/readerpoll.html
http://www.todaysengineer.org/careerfocus/Aug01te/aug01depts/readerpoll.html
PS.
Charles Stark "DOC" Draper was the engineer for whom the award was named. Draper was the father of the modern inertial guidance system without which our airliners, submarines, missiles and space shuttle could not function. (The inertial guidance system was essential to the moon landing program.)