This section attempts to convey key aspects of engineering. As in other parts of science, the distinction between physics and engineering is blurred. The engineering task is to utilize what is understood about the world to design a practical solution. As in basic research, there is often a mix of what techniques have been previously established combined with creative ways to achieve an understanding not previously achieved.
Unlike much of what you can study elsewhere in ie-Physics, here many of the choices about what to describe have been based on the personal experiences of the site author. And in a way, this is more typical of engineering where the focus is on practical problems rather than systematically understanding useful knowledge.
This engineering assignment has roots which extend nearly as far back as the written history of the region. While a student, the author of this web site read some of the tales of Theodore Winthrop, 25 year old Yale graduate and descendent of the first governor of Connecticut. Winthrop journeying around the Far West. Canoe and Saddle describes 11 days of his adventures in 1853 as he utilized the regional transportation system then available in the Pacific Northwest.
Now there is a W shaped, often multi-laned highway system meandering around the mountains and the drooping fjord which extends about 200 miles in from the Pacific Ocean. A railroad being upgraded for higher speed travel snakes up the East side of what is called Puget Sound. But getting across this narrow body of water is still primarily by slow 18 Knot auto ferries.
In 1998 Washington State introduced passenger ferries traveling twice as fast connecting the cities of Seattle and Bremerton immediately to the West on a route which winds around the southern tip of Bainbridge Island. But home owners along the narrowest part of Rich's Passage claimed that, unlike earlier ship traffic, these new ships eroded their beaches. The author spent thousands of hours of childhood playing on the beach and in water-craft at the family home along Rich's Passage. So this problem caught his interest. He recalled that many of the old auto ferries had been repeatedly upgraded, and re-engined. As a result many of them generated wakes much larger, more choppy, and with shorter wavelengths than the new, smaller but faster passenger ferries. And not all locations along Rich's Passage experienced the recent erosion. Even though some locations had obvious and severe beach erosion, the unwanted movement of beach sands and gravel was unlikely to have a simple explanation. So an engineering study was commissioned. Eventually for several reasons, use of the fast ferries was suspended, further complicating the study.
The expression the plural of antidote is not data
has important application for science and engineering. While individual stories and the practical experiences and observations of peoples such as the home owners and the author may serve to formulate hunches, they do not provide the firm understanding of science. Science requires that we formulate ways to make measurements, develop models which can be used to make predictions, and test those predictions against the measurements. There are several factors which influence the moment of sand and gravel along beaches: tidal currents, wind generated waves, and a wide variety of ship traffic including the largest vessels of the U.S. Navy which visit the shipyard in Bremerton. Beach erosion and deposition have occurred for millennium. Now there was practical need to understand all the factors involved.
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