This is – hands down – the most atrocious book I’ve read so far this year, and probably within the last three years. I’m sure the author is technically competent in his field, whatever it is, but his reasons for writing this particular book are a complete mystery. I suspect he believes he has written something that is accessible to the general reader. To the contrary, this book is an incomprehensible, indigestible mess, in which all he does is manage to display his singular pedagogical ineptness. Mark Eberhart is the insufferable nerd relatives scatter to get away from at family gatherings. The kind of guy you just pray you're never stuck next to on a transatlantic flight. The kind of guy you hope you, or your kids, never have as a professor. This may seem harsh. If so, put it down to my frustration at having slogged through 250 pages of meandering text without ever having come across a coherent summation of what the book is really about.
Unless you consider t...more
This is – hands down – the most atrocious book I’ve read so far this year, and probably within the last three years. I’m sure the author is technically competent in his field, whatever it is, but his reasons for writing this particular book are a complete mystery. I suspect he believes he has written something that is accessible to the general reader. To the contrary, this book is an incomprehensible, indigestible mess, in which all he does is manage to display his singular pedagogical ineptness. Mark Eberhart is the insufferable nerd relatives scatter to get away from at family gatherings. The kind of guy you just pray you're never stuck next to on a transatlantic flight. The kind of guy you hope you, or your kids, never have as a professor. This may seem harsh. If so, put it down to my frustration at having slogged through 250 pages of meandering text without ever having come across a coherent summation of what the book is really about.
Unless you consider this kind of thing coherent. In a chapter where he is explaining to the reader that he likes to play games with anyone unfortunate enough to ask him what he does for a living:
When I want to have fun, however, I say, ‘My research is concerned with the study of why things break.’ Usually a look of satisfaction appears in the questioner’s eyes as he says, ‘Oh, so you are a mechanical engineer (metallurgist, ceramist, or materials scientist).’
Now the fun begins as I say, ‘No, I study why things break, not when.’
The questioner is now doubtful. I sometimes break down at this point and explain my research in detail, but I have been known to milk the when/why distinction until my questioner is just fed up and moves on. ...
It is a common misunderstanding, confusing when with why. What people really understand is when things break. Fracture, as with almost every other phenomenon, is composed of two parts, cause and effect. The question of when deals with the cause, while that of why deals with the effect.
Yeah. And I am Marie of Roumania.
You may not have a problem with this kind of stuff, but I do. There’s his juvenile satisfaction in somehow outsmarting the misfortunate soul who just asked him a polite question, the smug superiority about his sacred when/why distinction. Followed by a completely batshit crazy ‘elucidation’ of said distinction. One which divorces ‘why’ from cause. Humpty Dumpty has nothing on this guy.
And it doesn’t get any better. In fact, it gets infinitely worse. You might get an inkling of how much worse if I tell you that, despite the technical nature of the subject matter, the book contains not a single formula, equation, graph, or diagram. Think about that. One can admire the bravery of trying to write a book which eschews the use of equations. But only a fool would choose not to include charts, diagrams or pictures. There were at least a dozen places in the book where a simple diagram might actually have made the point clearly and spared the reader several paragraphs of tortuous, confusing prose.
Chapter 5 –- Shocking, Simply Shocking – exemplifies what a sorry mess this book is. Opening with some pointless bitching about how fracture mechanics didn’t make anyone’s list of top accomplishments of the millennium, he segues into a pedantic discussion about how people misuse the term ‘quantum leap’. There follows a two-page account of the hearings following sinking of the Titanic, ten-pages about the Challenger (including a ridiculous mile-by-mile account of where exactly the author was on his commute during the countdown), four pages on a lawsuit against GM for safety issues with the Chevy Malibu fuel tank placement, and six pages about an industrial accident where the author was called as an expert witness. It all seems to lead nowhere in particular. But I’m stubborn, so I read the chapter twice more. Eventually I figured out that he was trying to make a point, namely that public attitudes about how to react to such highly publicized cases of failure have evolved from “failure is inevitable, avoid circumstances likely to produce it” to “improve design to the point where the risk of failure is essentially negligible”. An evolution he characterizes as a ‘quantum change’. At which point you just want to strangle the bastard. By his own admission, this is a characterization that is confusing to most people, but rather than seek out simpler, less ambiguous language, instead he adds a page and a half of bitching about how everyone else in the world misuses the term (which does nothing to eliminate the potential for confusion) and goes ahead and uses it anyway. What a sanctimonious dickhead!
I think Eberhart is constitutionally incapable of correctly gauging the actual level of his audience's understanding. So, about three lines into any of his explanations, he and the reader part company - he continues obliviously (after all, it's all obvious to him), leaving the reader to seethe in a muddle of incomprehension. Some readers might be tempted to blame deficiencies in their own technical background, effectively giving Eberhart a pass on the wretchedness of this effort. Don’t. The only person who deserves excoriation for this appalling dog’s breakfast of a book is Mark E. Eberhart. And possibly his editor, though it’s hard for me to believe he really had one.
(less)
Why Things Break: Understanding the World By the Way It Comes Apart 
newest »
I hope I shall never write anything that deserves to be skewered by David Giltinan. As much as I love reading these floggings, I wouldn't want to be tied to the post. But do please keep it up, David. Someone has to do it.
