Concentrate on Critical Thinking School teaches you how to learn not how to think

摘要

THE COMPLEXITY of the human body makes critical thinking an essential skill for doctors.It's also important in our work.However,engineers often learn the value of critical thinking the hard way.Let's start with how engineers make mistakes-by:1)over-simplifying a problem;2)focusing on nuances instead of the main objective or problem;3)having poor situational awareness;4)using untested or misapplied assumptions or unreasonably extrapolating a method;5)failing to create a unique fact-check procedure for problem solving;and 6)communicating poorly with end-users or colleagues.I could add a few more-but then I'd make mistake No.2! Suppose you're specifying a pump for a slurry.If you have the elevation change and desired flow rate,why not pick it by using water at 50°F? Don't even try.What you need,as a bare minimum,are:physical properties and equivalent lengths for pipe and fittings based on those properties;the pipe run;flow control plan;availability of seal solution;and corrosion properties.Many a foolish engineer has tried to size a pump for handling non-Newtonian fluids using water.This falls under the category of over-simplification.