NONFICTION - Jan. 26, 1992

FLYING BUTTRESSES, ENTROPY, AND O-RINGS: The World of an Engineer by James L. Adams (Harvard: $24.95; 259 pp.). It’s rare to encounter a book in the popular trade press about matters as practical as how buttresses fly, what entropy measures and why O-rings leak. Most writers and editors undoubtedly shy away from a discussion of such subjects when they realize it might involve--horrors--math. Webster’s technophobic editors describe engineering as “the art of managing engines,” for instance, a definition, Stanford’s James Adams writes, that would elicit “an expletive from most engineers I know.” In these witty and engrossing pages, Adams demonstrates that engineering actually can be as divine an occupation as the clergy (given Newton’s discovery that the prosaic objects on Earth obey the same laws as the heavens) and as soulful as an aria: Engineers in the Middle Ages, for instance, designed buildings with a sophistication worthy of a modern supercomputer out of their sheer passion for creating great open spaces and soaring ceilings. This is not to say that engineering has never been tedious. But the modern digital computer, Adams points out, has now freed engineers to concentrate on more creative work.

Don’t expect this book to outsell “Scarlett”: There are still too many condescending, hosanna-like phrases to evoke unpleasant memories of high school textbooks: e.g., “Thanks to technology, we can take better care of ourselves than at any other time in our history.” Adams’ literary tour, nevertheless, is the next best thing to visiting a hands-on engineering exhibit such as San Francisco’s Exploratorium.