武夷山 译
Workflowmax网站于2020年4月提供了一些著名工程师和发明家的名言（博主：原文如此，其实有的语录的主人并非工程师，只是语录内容涉及工程或工程师），下面我翻译其中一些，与大家分享。这是第七部分。
1. “Gradually people come to you to buy surprise, and the thing that’s nicest about it is that when people come to buy surprise, I have no idea of what I’m going to give them either.”
- Peter Rice（1935-1992），爱尔兰结构工程师，为法国蓬皮杜艺术中心做了结构设计
逐渐地，人们到你这儿来购买惊喜，而最奇妙的一点在于，当人们来购买惊喜时，我也不知道该向他们提供什么。
2. “Engineering stimulates the mind. Kids get bored easily. They have got to get out and get their hands dirty: make things, dismantle things, fix things. When the schools can offer that, you’ll have an engineer for life.”
- Bruce Dickinson，曾任波音公司副总裁，波音747研发项目总工程师
工程是刺激心灵的。孩子很容易感到无聊。他们必须出门，做些动手的事：造东西，拆东西，修东西。如果学校能提供这些内容，你就能培养出终身以工程师为业的人。
3. “If not for the compulsions of engineers, mankind would never have seen the wheel, settling instead for the trapezoid because some Neanderthal in marketing convinced everybody it had great braking ability.”
- Scott Adams，1957- ，美国著名漫画家
要不是由于工程师的强烈反冲，人类就可能见不到轮子了，而会满足于梯形物，因为营销部门的守旧人士会让所有人相信，梯形物的刹车效果很棒。
4. “Engineers have more words for screwing up than the Inuit have words for snow.”
- Pierce Nichols
工程师描述拧紧螺丝的词汇比因纽特人描述冰雪的词汇还要丰富。
5. “At that time (1909) the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.”
- Igor Sikorsky，1889-1972，俄裔美国飞机设计师
那个时候（1909），总工程师几乎也总是首席试飞员。这就带来一个幸运的结果：将航空业早期的差劲工程都给消灭了。
6. “I guess the question I"m asked the most often is: "When you were sitting in that capsule listening to the count-down, how did you feel?" Well, the answer to that one is easy. I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of two million parts -- all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.”
- John Glenn，1921-2016，美国第一位绕地球飞行的宇航员约翰·格伦
我猜，我被问次数最多的问题是：“当你坐在太空舱里，聆听点火倒数口令的时候，你感受如何？”呃，对这个问题的回答很简单。我的感受与你若坐在舱里的感受是一模一样的：你正在等待发射，而且你知道自己坐在200万个零件之上——所有零件都是由政府合同竞标中的最低报价者生产的。
7.“I am an old man now, and when I die and go to Heaven there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics and the other is the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former I am rather more optimistic.”
- Sir Horace Lamb，1849-1934，英国著名数学家兰姆爵士
我年事已高，当我死后升天时，有两件事我希望获得上天启迪。一是量子电动力学，二是流体的湍流运动。我对前者的解决更乐观。
8. “The engineer is a mediator between the philosopher and the working mechanic and, like an interpreter between two foreigners must understand the language of both, hence the absolute necessity of possessing both practical and theoretical knowledge.”
- Henry Palmer
工程师是哲学家与普通机械师之间的中介，正如为两名外国人做翻译者必须懂这两位外国人的语言一样，工程师绝对有必要既掌握实践知识又掌握理论知识。
9. “When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
- R. Buckminster Fuller，美国发明家、哲学家、诗人巴克明斯特.富勒
当我解决一个问题时，我从不考虑美，但在我结束工作之际，如果解决方案不美，我就知道方案肯定错了。
10. “The world would be a better place if more engineers, like me, hated technology. The stuff I design, if I’m successful, nobody will ever notice. Things will just work, and be self-managing.”
- Radia Pearlman，1951- ，美国著名女程序员和网络工程师
如果更多的工程师像我一样痛恨技术，世界就会变得更好。如果我干得漂亮，我设计的东西根本不会引起注意。这些东西就是管用，它们是自我控制无需用户操心的。
博主：我曾写过“互联网之母拉迪亚·珀尔曼描述生成树协议的小诗”（http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1190298.html）
相关阅读
著名工程师和发明家的名言（1），http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1284837.html
著名工程师和发明家的名言（2），http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1285510.html
著名工程师和发明家的名言（3），http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1286125.html
著名工程师和发明家的名言（4），http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1286882.html
著名工程师和发明家的名言（5）http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1288959.html
著名工程师和发明家的名言（6），http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1557-1291065.html
