Guru and Roma Reflect

ROMA AGRAWAL

Hello, it's been a little while. This podcast from the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has been on a bit of a pause and will continue to be. Let's see what the future brings to Create The Future. Now this isn't a normal episode. I don't have an aquatic engineer, an astronaut or a reality show chef to talk to. Instead, I've got one of my podcast co-hosts and fellow engineer Guru Madhavan. Hi Guru.

GURU MADHAVAN

Roma, it's a delight to get together. Hope you're well. Hello.

ROMA AGRAWAL

Hi there, finally in this virtual environment. Well, I'm really excited, Guru, that we're going to be listening back to some of our favorite bits from the last two years of making this podcast, which of course wouldn't have been possible without our other co-hosts, George Imafidon and Dr. Anna Ploszajski. Guru, now my first question to you is which episode of Create The Future has stuck with you the most?

GURU MADHAVAN

Where do I begin? So the episodes I've hosted have taken us on quite a journey. We explored maintenance through the lens of my ancestors in the Indus Valley. They prioritized sanitation, you see, and they understood its value as fundamental to civilization. We examined voting systems and why they matter so critically at a time when democracy itself is facing profound questions everywhere almost. I traveled then, at least in imagination, to outer space and distant planets piloted by former leaders of NASA. And we also had deeply rich and reflective conversations about engineering responsibly for disability. But to get to your question, I think it's the fire safety episode, which was my debut episode here. And it reveals something utterly fascinating. It was about how engineering solutions can emerge from the most unexpected places. And in that episode, we discussed literally explosive insights, including how what might seem like mere superstition can actually solve a life or death problem. Picture this. After the iron fire protection curtain fell, the conductor ordered the orchestra to play God Save the King to signal the show's end and rouse the people to exit. Legend suggests that everyone evacuated in the two and a half minutes it took the orchestra play the British national anthem. This theatrical tragedy of 1911 unintentionally created a design standard or a magic number. See it's a perfect example of how engineering ideas can and do emerge from human behavior, tradition, and even tragedy.

JOSE TORERO CULLEN

You always find this headline that says, you know, the people in the plane were very lucky because they managed to get out on time without recognizing that actually the whole evacuation of an airplane, you know, even the way in which the fuselage is designed, the way in which the chairs are treated and designed, all that is fire engineering. And it's all fire engineered to give you one minute to get out of the plane.

GURU MADHAVAN

Now, how about you, Roma?

ROMA AGRAWAL

Guru, you're turning the tricky question back on myself now. I too have been on an amazing journey since I started co-hosting this podcast. We've talked about life on Mars. We've talked about telescopes and space, about solar energy, you know, just amazing things that go under the sea, for example. So there's so, so many amazing examples, but funnily enough, I think I'm going to go back pretty much to my debut episodes as well. So I'm going to have to pick two, I'm afraid. And those will be the episode on knitting and the episode on baking. Now, the reason I love those the best is because perhaps these topics were really unexpected to the listeners as being discussed on an engineering podcast. And of course, making the baked Alaska live on air as it were, was very memorable and obviously quite delicious as well. I'm just thinking of all the gears inside the blender. I'm very excited. I'm also slightly concerned. I'm going to get egg white all over my face. Here we go.

ANDREW SMYTH

Full speed, full beans. Like marshmallowy.

ROMA AGRAWAL

I'm just going to say this is why I could never do Bake Off because I'm bored already.

ANNA PLOSZAJSKI

And that's it, isn't it? Like when we ignore that knowledge base in the crafts, like it's the engineering that suffers, right? Like we don't find the solutions that we need. I think that's like the crux of it for me is the process of making is so important for engineering, right? There's what we sometimes call the design loop of design, make, test, design, make, test, design, make, test. And you go round and round and round this loop, as you say sometimes many, many times before you're happy with the textile or the material or the building or whatever it is that you're trying to create. It's that process of making that is how we learn as engineers.

GURU MADHAVAN

So Roma, since we are talking about a number of things associated with this podcast series, including how, let's say, how the series has taught us several things, I'm curious what you'll be taking away from presenting this series.

ROMA AGRAWAL

Yeah, I think from a personal perspective, I've really been able to hone and develop my interviewing skills. And I've really loved speaking to incredible engineers from all over the world. And that's been a really joyful thing for me. But I think the biggest thing that I'm going to take away, which is important, as you say, in these very difficult times in which we live is hope. You know, hearing from all of these engineers, you know, whether they were involved in ocean rehab or space telescopes looking at climate change, sustainability, disability. It did remind me that we as humans, we can do great things if we put our mind and effort to it.

GARTH ILLINGWORTH

I have to say that the highlight for me scientifically was when we discovered with Hubble the most distant galaxy era. This was back in about 2014, 2015. It took us back through about 95, 90 or 96 % of all time, close to the beginnings of the universe. It was unusually bright, was unexpectedly bright. And so that was a real conundrum trying to understand where did this galaxy come from? And this was the only one that was found like that with Hubble. And for many years, it basically was the record holder for Hubble.

ROMA AGRAWAL

Guru, can you tell me if there are any concrete things that perhaps made you feel optimistic?

GURU MADHAVAN

So I like to say that engineering is peer reviewed by reality. And reality has a way of validating some core tenets, principles, time and again. The discussion on disability engineering captured this perfectly. What starts as accommodation for specific needs often reveals, give rise to universal truths about how humans actually interact with their environment.

ASHLEY SHEW

What I think about in terms of technology for people with disabilities is often sort of the structural ways in which we are excluded. And a lot of it's in the way we build things, the way we plan things, the way we have certain expectations of people, the way we care about communicating in particular ways. I want more ways of being in the world and being good. And so much of this impetus to always fix disability suggests that there's no way to be good in this world and be disabled at the same time.

GURU MADHAVAN

So this is a part of a persistent pattern, you see, where good engineering principles reassert themselves across completely different contexts, cultures, and centuries. And they survive because they work and they get tested across different applications and time periods and keep proving their worth. That persistence, since you asked for something concrete here, that persistence suggests that there are underlying aspects about human needs and behavior that engineers can rely on, even when the technology or its platform completely changes. Reality is always a rigorous reviewer and the ideas that pass its test tend to be robust. That's what makes me optimistic from an engineering design perspective.

ROMA AGRAWAL

Yeah, I think that's a great point. It's so interesting to hear this principle of reality testing engineering. I think a couple of the standout moments for me were the episode on repairing electronics that I did with Professor Mark Miodownik. And I think that's a great example where we've produced all this engineering, it's all out there in the world. And what reality is showing us is that we're creating a lot of waste and now we need a solution to that. you know, repairing engineering is now something that I think is on the forefront of people's minds. So I think that that's a really interesting response.

GURU MADHAVAN

I think it is embedded as part of our core consciousness because we were all engineers before we were, or rather tool builders before we were truth seekers or politicians or anything else. And I think we talked about repair, sanitation or bundle them into the philosophy of maintenance. And I think it has been an overarching and underpinning strategy for civilizational enablement. And in my episode with Pam Elardo and Andrew Russell, we discussed why maintenance is constantly chronically undervalued compared to the newness and the novelty and the niftiness that we celebrate recognize privilege in society. So even though there's this kind of the light and shadows game going on in society, I'm still optimistic that without one maintenance, the other cannot exist, which is innovation. So I think this synergy, this bilateral tension that exists is, I think, unavoidable.

ROMA AGRAWAL

I really like the point you brought up about us being toolmakers before we became politicians, because the theme that occurred to me throughout this series, almost no matter which engineer I spoke to, but it was particularly brought to the front by Professor Andrew Blakers when we talked about solar cells. And this was one of the former laureates of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. So one of these standout themes that came out from that conversation and others was that engineers, we have the ideas, we have solutions, we can solve a lot of the problems that face us. And that the systems and politics need to create the environment in which these can be implemented. So it's a societal challenge. It's not just for engineers to be solving in isolation. And I very much hope that in the future, is something that's really recognized universally in our way forward, that governments and organizations that have the power to enact change work much more closely with engineers and scientists.

GURU MADHAVAN

And this addiction to solve things, fixing things in isolation can and will be pernicious. So I think that recognition is pretty crucial here. And I think that's what motivates me today most about engineering is I think our interest in returning to deeper questions. And I think people are ready for that. People have been ready for that. I think we just need to enable such conversations. And we were glad that our podcast series provided a little bit of an effort toward that. But more engineers are thinking beyond technical fixes. They are duly beginning to consider the cultural, ethical, social, and environmental implications of their work. It's almost unavoidable. Being a good engineer, you just cannot get away from those things. So there is a clear shift toward a more systemic consciousness, shall we say, a purpose-driven design, where ingenuity meets responsibility. But that needs to happen at a bigger scale. And that's the whole struggle, that's our whole project as engineers going forward. At the same time, I do feel concerned about how rapidly certain technologies are advancing. And this is all happening without the steadying, calming influence of reflection. Now, I might sound like a philosopher here, but I think it's paramount that we incorporate reflection as part of the rigorous practices of engineering. AI, right? I mean, everyone's talking about it, for instance, I mean, brings tremendous capability, of course, but it also invites, even motivates complacency. Then it goes about replacing careful thinking with just quick, cheap, convenient results. It's almost costless even. Again, it's a classic problem in engineering, nothing new. The challenge isn't the tool itself, but how we choose to responsibly apply it, assess whom it serves and how, and currently ask what it displaces and at what expense.

ROMA AGRAWAL

Yeah, the analogy that we often use is that the hammer can be used to put in a nail to join wood together, or it can be used to smash things up, isn't it? I think that's the concern. I very much share your concern about the rate at which AI has come in and definitely this idea that it's just spitting out all this information and results at us. And I think my concern here is also about the lack of diversity of the people that are creating the AI, whether that's from a Western perspective or a privileged perspective or a male perspective, there's all these different biases that perhaps will be fed into the AI. And we're already seeing examples of that coming out. And I'm afraid that it will continue to perpetuate the systemic injustices that already exist.

GURU MADHAVAN

In one of the episodes, I thought it was a play on words, but I believe in it deeply. The other AI, ancient intelligence. And I think we need to look back to better understand how we want to go forward here. I mean, I share your worry, of course, throughout our episodes, we have seen how good engineering gets tested, invested, contested, even protested by a range of real-world conditions. But AI development is happening in such a narrow bubble. Okay, sure, there are other aspects of engineering industries that happen similarly. My background is in medical device development and of course, you're building skyscrapers and the rest of the world needn't worry about it as long as the thing works reliably. But AI happening in such a narrow bubble makes me wonder, worry that it won't get the crucial reality check until it's too late. So are we building systems without the full peer review of human experience? I don't know. And here's what really gets me. Fairness is critical, of course, but as is functionality. AI functioning without a requisite range of perspectives on it will simply work worse. Now that should panic us.

ROMA AGRAWAL

It's so interesting, Guru, isn’t it. So we're talking about AI and the lack of diverse perspective and the bubble that's being done in. But of course this has happened in the past and sometimes I fear that we're destined to repeat history. But from my perspective, working as a structural engineer in the world of cities and urban planning. We have examples from the past of precast concrete panels, so panels of concrete that are made in a factory and then brought to the construction site and quickly assembled. So post-war, this was being done a lot to quickly throw up housing for all the people that needed it. And then a few years later, we were seeing that these were collapsing and causing fatalities. So these are real devastating impacts that untested and unthought through engineering can have. Do you have any other takeaways, Guru?

GURU MADHAVAN

I think to the point of getting a full range of perspectives, engineers, as we know, we have all been through that. And that's just the nature of the profession, operating under constraints you sometimes cannot afford to wait for the full range of perspectives or the universe and its functioning are well characterized and known to inform practice and so forth. So that I think is the practical, tactical, strategic constraints that engineers deal with. How much is too much? But that said, mean, engineering always involves wonder and worst case scenarios, right? Brilliance and boredom. It's just this fascinating mix of extremes. Our conversations keep coming back to the need for beyond specialization thinking, which sounds like a luxury these days. Even putting people at the center of the so-called equation and maintaining that sense of exploration as we appreciate the past, understanding the present and help shape the future of a profession. Which it's a profession of know-how that's far older than the sciences of know what. But here's my most unexpected takeaway from this entire series. How I almost went to coffee side from being a devoted tea drinker. Now that's real cultural engineering happening through caffeination. It's extraordinary. And the role of engineering in basically giving a drive to humanity every morning without fail. Now that's a different kind of energy transition that we need to be thinking about.

ROMA AGRAWAL

You said earlier that you were drinking some good old Indian chai, but are you into the coffee now or have they converted you?

GURU MADHAVAN

Well, I said almost. Still in the beta testing phase, I'm afraid. Still a hardcore tea drinker, not ready for the culture shock yet.

ROMA AGRAWAL

I'm with you, Guru.

GURU MADHAVAN

Ruma, we keep talking about how engineers shape the world. But how has being an engineer shaped you as a person? I mean, like, do you think we see reality differently because we're always thinking about load bearing and life breaking, whatnot?

ROMA AGRAWAL

Yeah, I mean, I love this question and I can answer it in a couple of different ways. But I'll start off with the story that my husband always gets really annoyed with me when we come back from holiday because at least 90 % of the photographs I take are of bricks and arches and other little features of buildings. And he doesn't feature very highly. So he's not very pleased about that. So yes, you know, I go away on holiday and I'm thinking about how things work. I want to know how the ancient Romans did it, or these Hindu temples were built or how the Islamic domes and arches work. You know, it's a really fascinating thing for me. And I think one of the things that's changed from my perspective is how engineering and culture are so deeply related and how that's cross-cultural. So I mentioned the pointed Islamic arch, which we now see in Catholic and Christian cathedrals from medieval times. And people might not understand that this has actually gone from one religion to another. So there is so much depth in engineering. And I think the biggest change that's come in me in the last six to seven years since I started writing my book is making those cultural connections. But I also wanted to answer your question in a slightly different way about how engineers or engineering has shaped us in actually quite a literal way. So I've been recently researching lithic tools, you know, stone tools and ancient hominin ancestors that were napping flint, essentially. And research is suggesting that because of selective evolution, people that had the strongest thumb to hand to palm grip were the ones that perpetuated, that reproduced. And so the actual use of stone tools changed the shape and the strength of our hands as humans. And I think that's such an incredible thing to think about.

GURU MADHAVAN

I think we have something in common here. I do have the habit of taking photographs of stuff that others don't seem to be interested in. Since we were talking about Rome, my recent visit involved not taking the pictures of the Vatican but something far below. I went to Cloaca Maxima which is the longest running sewer system, I think far more vital life-giving resource. There was hardly anyone there so it was a source of private joy for me about how humanity sees value in other things that capture their attention.

ROMA AGRAWAL

I would have been right there with you if I was traveling with you to Rome. I have a final question for you, Guru. We're both obviously really passionate about engineering. It's become a part of our existence. So what would you be doing and why if you weren't an engineer?

GURU MADHAVAN

Actually, I wanted to be a monk at one point, I was considering renunciation. Just, you know, the same attraction to systems thinking just applied to the soul instead of structures and skyscrapers. So that's that.

ROMA AGRAWAL

I mean, that's quite an unexpected response, and possibly there's still time in your life to do that. But yeah, very succinct, I would say.

GURU MADHAVAN

I think you as a structural engineer would appreciate this Japanese saying, the wind howls but the mountain remains still.

ROMA AGRAWAL

Sounds exactly like an engineering monk to me.

GURU MADHAVAN

You've been listening to Create the Future, a podcast from the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and Peanut & Crumb. This episode was produced by Saskia Cookson and I've been Guru Madhavan.

ROMA AGRAWAL