Jacob H. Douma
about percent of the computer values. Also, since computer computations are based on
certain assumptions, they may not be closer than percent of actual field values. So I
claimed that the slide rule computations were just as good as the computer computations
for this particular case.
I asked why they wasted so much time using the computer. They said, "That doesn't take
any time. You just put a little stuff in the computer, poke here and there, and it just clicks
on and on and on, and you get all this stuff printed out to three or four decimal points.
[Laughs]. I said, "When you place those computations with three or four decimal points
in a report, any engineer who knows anything about water levels in a river will laugh."
I always make jokes about engineers who depend completely on computers.
Maybe we have gone too far in that direction?
Right. The person who did the computer computations had a doctorate degree, and he
always used computers. He was a young man, and that's the only way he knew how to
make computations.
That's the way he was trained?
A:
That's the way he was trained.
What other technologies beyond computers came in that period of time that significantly
improved the way you modeled? Was there anything else that was specifically important?
I don't think so. Most of the design engineers in the Corps never sent any computer
printouts in their reports. I think they're still doing it the way we did it 30 years ago.
The old way?
A:
Design Criteria
You mentioned design criteria. Developing design criteria is always a critical area, isn't
it? How do you go about doing that?
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