English/metric measurement error in the Mars Climate Orbiter

[MiTasol]

Above all else remember that every stuff-up starts in an office and the usual instigator is a University Educated Idiot that is too clever to make a mistake.

As a UEI who had thirty years of hands on practical (including a five year apprenticeship in Aircraft Maintenance) prior to starting my degrees I totally agree with the bolded section above and would replace every with many a.

Far too many graduates are full of education and totally lacking intelligence and common sense. They confuse the ability to write essays that are graded by people with no practical experience with demonstrating learning.

Worse still the ego of many ensures they lack the ability to read the component manufacturers publications which clearly identify how the component works and how it will not work. Some, when you point out their error, throw a tantrum that a two year old would be proud of.

[Fast Fergie]

Above all else remember that every stuff-up starts in an office and the usual instigator is a University Educated Idiot that is too clever to make a mistake.

I thought i was the only one that knew that.
Reminds me of when i was building office blocks, the bane of my life was newly qualified Engineers, they knew everything but could do nothing.

[NortonDommi]

Regarding U.E.I'S,(University Educated Idiots), there are a lot of them out there, I know this as I personally have encountered a great many of them. That is not to say that everyone who graduates with a degree is an idiot, far from it but a piece of paper that [I]should[I]demonstrate a capacity for intelligent and rational thought is in today's world no guaranty and it is in the occupation of 'manager' that the unworthy usually surface.
I was not demeaning education more the questionable quality of some and the 'teaching' of subjects that are not and never will be of use to anyone also the adherence to wacky theories.
In the cases mentioned and a space shuttle disaster the fundamental problem was not an Imperial/metric problem it was system errors or more correctly people errors due to not following a system and there not being sufficient checks in place.
Everybody makes mistakes hopefully there is a system that is vigorously followed to catch them before they become catastrophic.

[12bolts]

As a commercial diver, I dealt with a fair number of engineers during my career. The difficulties they had were just grasping the basics of buoyant force mainly. Tertiary educated people that write things down and think that because it works in principle it must work in practice. A couple of examples that spring to mind are that of a civil job laying a railway track under water. The company freighted in a semi load of sleepers for the track to be laid on. We tried to tell them they wouldnt be able to position them. But the engineer responsible was adamant that because they were "so heavy" they would do the job. The crane lowered them into the water and we released the chains and watched as the waves washed them ashore again. On another job, a pipeline tie-in, the new section of pipe was manufactured, (about 100 metres long x 800mm dia) and capped at each end. This was then fitted with hundreds of 200 lt drums for buoyancy and floated into position. The drums were then selectively removed in a calculated manner to provide a controlled descent into position. After the last drums were cut loose this pipeline was still bobbing on the surface like a cork. Even setting moorings. Everybody thinks concrete is great for a mooring because its "so heavy" A m3 of dry concrete weighs almost 2.5 tonne. Problem is it displaces about 1 tonne of water, And it is massive for its weight so it also provides a huge resistance to water currents further undermining its properties as a mooring. A steel plate of maybe 3-400 kg flat on the bottom is far superior to a huge block of concrete.
I could list more that I have personally encountered, and there are dozens more I have heard about, but, its just comes back to people in offices unwilling to listen to experience on the ground.

[jasonmrye]

I feel your pain! If I have one more square peg/round hole/no-go conversation with an engineer, I'm just gonna lose it. Had to take the guy out to the machine I was running and show him before he would believe me. I even used big words (correctly), so he would feel more comfortable.

[Philip Davies]

Thanks, Jason. Big words are my stock-in-trade!

[tooly]

As a commercial diver, I dealt with a fair number of engineers during my career. The difficulties they had were just grasping the basics of buoyant force mainly. Tertiary educated people that write things down and think that because it works in principle it must work in practice. A couple of examples that spring to mind are that of a civil job laying a railway track under water. The company freighted in a semi load of sleepers for the track to be laid on. We tried to tell them they wouldnt be able to position them. But the engineer responsible was adamant that because they were "so heavy" they would do the job. The crane lowered them into the water and we released the chains and watched as the waves washed them ashore again. On another job, a pipeline tie-in, the new section of pipe was manufactured, (about 100 metres long x 800mm dia) and capped at each end. This was then fitted with hundreds of 200 lt drums for buoyancy and floated into position. The drums were then selectively removed in a calculated manner to provide a controlled descent into position. After the last drums were cut loose this pipeline was still bobbing on the surface like a cork. Even setting moorings. Everybody thinks concrete is great for a mooring because its "so heavy" A m3 of dry concrete weighs almost 2.5 tonne. Problem is it displaces about 1 tonne of water, And it is massive for its weight so it also provides a huge resistance to water currents further undermining its properties as a mooring. A steel plate of maybe 3-400 kg flat on the bottom is far superior to a huge block of concrete.
I could list more that I have personally encountered, and there are dozens more I have heard about, but, its just comes back to people in offices unwilling to listen to experience on the ground.

As your diving operations appear to be in Australia, could it be that you have been inflicted with the new generation of Australian university trained and dummed down students? Plenty of credentials and no common sense.
I would more put my faith in a trade trained person who has worked his way up in the appropriate industry in conjunction with technical training.

[Fast Fergie]

I would more put my faith in a trade trained person who has worked his way up in the appropriate industry in conjunction with technical training.

Interesting that in the construction game in Ireland they are once again more interested in a trade background to run building sites. They were using engineers, as someone got it into their head that as these guys were uni trained, they must know better than the tradesman who made their way up the ladder.
After a lot of major and costly mistakes over several years, the industry had the common sense to go back to the old way.

Common sense! Not so common these days.

[drum365]

Great writeup, Jon. Your article's last 8 words have gone into my "Great Quotations" file!

[Toolmaker51]

Great writeup, Jon. Your article's last 8 words have gone into my "Great Quotations" file!

"...unlike people, errors are great at working together."

Posts often contain jewels of wisdom, which I doubt any HMT.net'ers feel a need to shield exterior usage. But just in case, I've edited that statement into...
Collectively and unlike people, mistakes demonstrate errors are great at working together.
it's filed as drum365 suggested; and now keystone my resume with comments I made about common errors in quality control program.

Here is education. Post-for-post, I don't think any HMT.net thread registers wrinkles in my grey matter faster than these 3 [so far] pages.