THE NOBEL PROFESSION v.2022
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THE ‘NOBEL’ PROFESSION
We Get No Recognition (paraphrase?the late comedian?Rodney Dangerfield).
The Entertainment Awards Season is underway:??Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, Screen Actor Guild Awards, Grammy’sTM.???COVID has put a damper on many the festivities.
The media frenzy surrounding the Academy AwardsTM???(March 27, 2022) is just beginning. Various media outlets will feature numerous stories of the awards. All this hoopla surrounding a little statuette for a performance in a motion picture. Even what the actors wear will make for news.??However in recent years the interest in these Awards programs is stagnant or waning.?I wonder how much interest there will be this year with continued news of COVID and the decline in movie attendance?
All the above is news??I wonder if the public realizes there are more things of substance.???????????
The ‘Other’ Academy Award!
The Draper Prize will be presented in Washington, D.C February 2022 in conjunction with the celebrations for Engineers Week (February 20-26, 2022 -??www.discovere.org).???The DRAPER PRIZE is one of the world's largest and most prestigious engineering award. The award will be given to an engineer or engineering team who have contributed to the advancement of engineering knowledge and the betterment of the mankind through technology.
(Editors: see????https://www.nae.edu/266390/RISC-Chip-Innovators-Receive-the-2022-Charles-Stark-Draper-Prize-for-Engineering
The Draper Prize is sometimes referred by many engineers as the absent Nobel Prize of Engineering. (Interesting fact: Nobel was a self taught-trained mechanical/chemical engineer but there is no Nobel Prize for engineering.)??News reports of the past winners of THE DRAPER PRIZE have been sporadic at best while the Nobel Prize generally makes news, sometimes on the front pages of newspapers or one of the nightly television broadcasts.??As the award is presented by the National “Academy” of Engineering (www.nae.edu) some engineers are beginning to refer to the Draper Prize as the “other”’ Academy Award.
2022 Draper Prize
David A. Patterson, John L. Hennessy, Stephen B. Furber,?and?Sophie M. Wilson?“for contributions to the invention, development, and implementation of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) chips.
The next time you use your computer, laptop, Smartphone you are using the technology of the RISC Chip as 99% of all new computer chips use the RISC architecture.
(supplemental)
The National Academy of Engineering in presenting the 2022 DRAPER PRIZE,??(Thee other Academy Award)?the nation's highest awards for engineering to David A. Patterson, John L. Hennessy, Stephen B. Furber,?and?Sophie M. Wilson?,?receiving a half million dollars and the recognition of this nation's nearly 2 million engineers are the real heroes. Unfortunately this major technology award (if prior years are any indication)??mostly likely will be ignored by the most media outlets (as in past years).
?[Will the media cover the winner of the 2022 Prize? Possibly including follow-up reporting on prior winners?]
So now, in an effort to help people understand just how important engineers are reaching out across the nation (and this posting) to get this message to the press.?Engineers are also reaching out to students of all ages in a host of S.T.E.M (Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics) programs.
I, for one, am thrilled that this message is getting out in engineering-technology journals and periodicals. But, I am dismayed the mainstream media thinks these messages, the various S.T.E.M.?Programs are just not important enough to ever cover on their own and get out to the public in general circulation publications or on the nightly television news.
Lest you think these are the rantings of some incensed engineer I offer the following:
Let's have one year in which the movie theaters are closed (OH??weren’t they shutdown in 2020?)?and present a reduced Academy Award'sTM program.?Would our lives really change that much??Let's not present awards to the other entertainment celebrities.
On the other hand let's abandoned the use of the technology pioneered by past winners of the DRAPER PRIZE. No more time-release medical drugs to cure our ailments, pain and suffering.?Robert Langer was the winner of the 2002 Draper Prize. For some of the past winners of the Draper Prize, let's abandon the use of their pioneering engineering achievements. No more integrated circuits (1989 Draper Prize to Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce) to power-control many of our electronic devices.??Let's stop all jet transport as the 1991 Draper Prize winners (Hans von Ohain and Sir Frank Whittle) were the engineer- inventors of the turbojet engine.???As we currently complain about high gas prices, the 1997 winner, Vladimir Haensel, won the Draper Prize for the process (platforming) that produces low cost-high octane gasoline.??
What about turning off the INTERNET! -Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock and Lawrence Roberts were 2001 recipients for creating the INTERNET then?in 2007 Tim Berners-Lee?recieved the?Draper Prize for creating the World Wide Web!
And are you using GPS to navigate??The 2003 Draper Prize went to Bradford W. Parkinson, Ivan A. Getting for their technological achievements in the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS).??
If you use a digital camera?you can thank?Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith?(2006 Recipients) for the invention of the Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies.?
The 2012 the recipients were T. Peter Brody, George H. Heilmeier, Wolfgang Helfrich for there creation of the LCD screen.?In 2013 the prize went to Martin Cooper, Joel S. Engel, Richard H. Frenkiel, Thomas Haug, and Yoshihisa Okumura as each made substantial contributions to a device that has revolutionize communication!?And what was this device?????The cell-phone!
In?2014 the prize went John Goodenough, Rachid Yazami, Akira Yoshino, and Yoshio Nishi as each made substantial contributions to the Lithium Ion Battery.?How many of your portable electronic devices are powered by lithium batteries??(Laptop, Cellphone, Digital Camera)? The Tesla Electric Car and other EV’s are powered by lithium batteries.?
?Ref:?https://www.nae.edu/Projects/MediaRoom/20095/69135/106261.aspx?
In 2015, think about the LED (Light-Emitting Diode) and its impact to your life in applications in Blue-Ray DVD players, Bar Code Scanners and your Flat Screen Television Receiver.?Here’s a prediction. Sometime in the near (very near) future Thomas Edison’s ‘Incandescent Light Bulb’ will be a memory/nostalgia having been replaced by LED lighting.
?In 2016 … Andrew J. Viterbi developed the Viterbi algorithm as a method for enhancing error-correcting code used in telecommunication. His publication of the algorithm in the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory in 1967 helped to usher in the age of cell phones by focusing on only the most likely computing paths for telecommunication signals, ultimately making it easier to eliminate static in transmissions. The Viterbi algorithm has also been instrumental in interplanetary communication signals, allowing for greater signal strength in deep space missions such as Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rover and the Cassini probe to Saturn.
In 2018 Bjarne Stroustrup received the award "for conceptualizing and developing the C++ programming language."?Though?most likely invisible to the public the C++programming language is at the heart of many commonly used products including the GOOGLE search engine, Facebook,, Smartphones and various computer programs.??Ask yourself how that impacts your day!
In 2020 the Draper Prize was awarded to photoresist pioneers?Jean Fréchet and C. Grant Willson “for the invention, development, and commercialization of chemically amplified materials for micro- and nanofabrication, enabling the extreme miniaturization of microelectronic devices.”???The next time you use your smartphone, computer or any of the host of other digital devices they are made possible by the creation of these photoresist materials.
?In 2012-14 NBC-TV aired a weekly television program – REVOLUTION.??As you may not recall the premise of the program is electricity has been mysteriously neutralized plunging the world into chaos with collapse of government and public order.?Think of a world without engineers, engineering achievements and this program provided a devastating forecast of a world without engineers, engineering.
For reality think of what recently happened when Texas wind turbines failed??(February 2021) during an extreme cold weather event.?The result was a strain on the electrical grid with blackouts.???
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Have I made my case?
Let's begin to recognize the real leaders and heroes are in society. When we will begin to recognize them for their accomplishments?
?Engineering is arguably, the source of the most direct and personal improvements in the quality of our lives than any other profession, yet the public (and most commonly the news media) overlook engineering awards and achievements, or give oblique credit to scientists, doctors or politicians for the advances in improving the quality of our lives. We venerate entertainers and athletes for their achievements who contribute little if anything to the improvement of the human condition, yet regularly overlook engineers and engineering who have built our modern society.
?The story of civilization is, in a sense, the story of engineering—that long and arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man's good. — Lyon Sprague DeCamp
The future of America rests NOT with those athletic superstars or entertainment celebrities garnering headlines and idolized by today's youth but with those scientists, technologists and engineers charting the new information-robotics age.
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Submitted for your consideration
Robert B. Johnson, SE,????
?(email: [email protected])???www.twitter.com/EngineerGuySE
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrAURSfKcPW9EFQl8-EFuhQ
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m.SEAOI????www.seaoi.org;??
f.ASCE???www.asce.org,??www.isasce.org???
f.ACI???www.concrete.org
m.TBP www.tbp.org
?(The above does not necessarily represent the views/opinions of the organizations I belong but cited for your reference)
??cc. National Academy of Engineering
Charles Stark "DOC" Draper was the engineer for whom the award was named. Draper was the father of the modern inertial guidance system without which our airliners, submarines, missiles and space shuttle could not function. (The inertial guidance system was essential to the moon landing program.)
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Editor's Note: Selected references:
?"At Last, an Engineers Prize", Commentary Chicago SUN-TIMES, October 7, 1988
?A similar version of this editorial appeared in the Chicago SUN-TIMES,?October 19, 1992.
?The Chicago SUN-TIMES (through an Associated Press story, Thursday, October 7, 1993) did announce the 1993 winner in an article buried on page 11, albeit 50 words, 2 sentences long, while the Nobel Prize winners received front page coverage. I did not see any mention of the 1995 Draper Prize which was officially presented during National Engineers Weekr, February 20, 1996.
?On October 18, 1997, Sun-Times Editorial Board member, Dennis Byrne had a commentary, "Well-Kept Secrets" noting the lack of press coverage of the 1997 Draper Prize Recipient, Vladimir Haensel
?On October 19, 1999 the Wall Street Journal published a letter to the editor by Professor Henry Petroski, Duke University, Captioned, "ENGINEERING IS NOBEL TOO". In the commentary Professor Petroski decried the lack of news coverage of the Draper Prize noting. "It is engineering, not science, that bring the greatest benefits to mankind".
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Selected Websites;
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Summary of Past Recipients:
https://www.nae.edu/Activities/Projects/Awards/DraperPrize/DraperWinners.aspx
“Eyes on the Wrong Prize”
??(Removed too bad.??It was a great commentary )
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Are We Really the Rodney 'No Respect' Dangerfield of Professions?
https://news.asce.org/are-we-really-the-rodney-no-respect-dangerfield-of-professions/
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https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2010-02-26-engineers_N.htm
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A Nobel Prize for ... engineers?
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Why there's no Nobel Prize in Computing
https://www.networkworld.com/article/2177705/data-center/why-there-s-no-nobel-prize-in-computing.html
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Other Awards Shows That Deserve to Get Red-Carpet Treatment
https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB107809286145942231??(sadly?removed)
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Entertainment or information: Which is needed?
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Suggested??reading:
Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs??
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