Engineering Achievements in the 20th Century and Challenges for
the 21st by: William Wulf National Academy of Engineering For
two years the National Academy of Engineering worked with the
engineering professional societies to identify the 20 greatest
engineering achievements of the 20th century. The criteria was
not the technological "Gee-whiz," but rather the greatest impact
on our quality of life. The result is a pretty remarkable list.
If you remove any single achievement from it, our lives would be
dramatically changed, and not in a positive way. The list covers
everything from the vast electric power grid, which was Number
1, to the development of high performance materials, which was
Number 20. In between were achievements that fundamentally
changed the way people live (safe drinking water, for example,
was Number 4), the way people work (computers were Number 8;
telephones were Number 9) and the way people travel (automobiles
were Number 2; airplanes were Number 3). The impact of many of
these achievem