Top 20 Engineering Developments of the 20th Century

No doubt engineering gets most of its attention when things go wrong. Take calamitous events such as the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse, and the Challenger and Columbia shuttle accidents. When engineering undertakings fail, they often do so tragically. Yet failure may be the true mother of invention; very often, grappling with malfunctions leads to creative insights and improvements. In 2000, the National Academy of Engineering released a list of the greatest engineering achievements of the twentieth century. Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century is a collaborative project led by the National Academy of Engineering with the American Association of Engineering Societies, National Engineers Week, the National Society of Professional Engineers and 29 professional engineering societies. Many of the choices in the list seem obvious — which simply emphasizes how essential to our lives these breakthroughs have become.