Famous Failures
This 1986 Soviet nuclear disaster — caused by a flawed reactor design and operators disabling safety systems during a late-night test — released 400 times more radiation than the Hiroshima bomb and rendered a 30 km exclusion zone uninhabitable to this day.
What is Chernobyl?
This 19th-century inventor held over 1,000 US patents, including the phonograph and the first practical incandescent light bulb, transforming how people lived and worked.
Who is Thomas Edison?
This renewable energy technology, engineered to convert sunlight directly into electricity, is now widely considered the cheapest source of electricity in history.
What is solar (photovoltaic) energy?
This two-part course at Northeastern University aims to provide students with a solid foundation across various engineering disciplines.
What is Cornerstone of Engineering?
This everyday kitchen appliance, engineered to heat food using electromagnetic radiation rather than a flame, was invented accidentally in 1945 when an engineer noticed a chocolate bar melting in his pocket near a radar device.
What is the microwave?
This 1912 ocean liner sank after striking an iceberg, killing over 1,500 people — later investigations revealed that the steel used in its hull became dangerously brittle in near-freezing water.
What is the Titanic?
This engineer and businessman co-founded Apple and revolutionized personal computing, music, and mobile phones.
Who is Steve Jobs?
In the 1970s, engineers and scientists discovered that CFC compounds were destroying this, leading to the landmark 1987 Montreal Protocol.
What is the ozone layer?
This name describes the student workers at FYELIC, the First Year Engineering Learning & Innovation Center.
Who are the Red Vests?
This lightweight metal — now found in airplanes, soda cans, and smartphones — was difficult to refine before electrolysis; it was considered more precious than gold, and was used to cap the Washington Monument in 1884 as a symbol of luxury.
What is aluminum?
In 1919, a poorly engineered storage tank in Boston's North End ruptured and unleashed a wave of this thick substance moving at 35 mph, killing 21 people and injuring 150.
What is the molasses flood?
This NASA mission required over 400,000 engineers and scientists and (allegedly) achieved humanity's first crewed lunar landing on July 20, 1969.
What is Apollo 11?
This federal agency, established in 1970 under President Nixon, is responsible for setting and enforcing environmental regulations that environmental engineers must design to comply with.
What is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?
This soon-to-leave dean of engineering at Northeastern University hosts monthly "Cookies with the Dean" socials with students.
Who is Dr. Gregory D. Abowd?
This common construction material — made by heating limestone to extreme temperatures — accounts for roughly 8% of global CO₂ emissions, making its decarbonization one of the biggest challenges in environmental engineering today.
What is cement?
This 1986 NASA disaster — caused by an O-ring seal failing in cold weather — killed seven astronauts and grounded the shuttle program for nearly three years, fundamentally changing how NASA manages engineering risk.
What is the Challenger disaster?
This process, co-developed, converts atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia — and today is responsible for feeding roughly half the world's population.
What is the Haber-Bosch process?
Engineers designed this device required in all US cars, which converts toxic exhaust gases like carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides into harmless substances. It is also commonly stolen for its precious metals.
What is the catalytic converter?
This stainless-steel/iron accessory is given to members of the Order of the Engineer, which serves as a reminder of their ethical responsibilities to the public.
What is the Engineer's Ring
Engineers at CERN built this 17-mile underground ring on the border of France and Switzerland to accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light — and in doing so accidentally invented the World Wide Web as a tool to share data between scientists.
What is the Large Hadron Collider/Particle Accelerator?
This 1940 Washington State bridge earned its fame for dramatic swaying before it collapsed just four months after opening. The footage became so famous it is shown in virtually every introductory engineering course as a cautionary tale about resonance.
What is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge?
This pioneering British chemist produced critical X-ray diffraction images of DNA, providing critical evidence for its double-helix structure.
Who is Rosalind Franklin?
Name one (or both) of the clean tech companies that RA David and Nathan work(ed) for.
What is/are SiTration, Inc. or Sublime Systems?
This monument in front of Snell Engineering is the symbol of Tau Beta Pi, the nation's oldest engineering honors society.
Engineers designing this system had to account for Einstein's theory of relativity, since the satellites' clocks tick slightly faster in orbit and would drift without a correction built into the software.
What is GPS?