A senior colleague of mine brought my attention to an advertisement with the tagline "Why not?" by a company called Atomberg. Indeed a wonderful advertisement! But the discussion point was that Engineers and Innovators ask the question "Why not?" whereas scientists ask "why?". It is not true that Scientists do not ask "why not". In fact, only because scientists ask "Why not have the eyes in the back of the head? Why not have an ellipsoid soap bubble?", they have found answers to why the eyes are in the front of the head and soap bubbles are spherical in shape. The question "why not" plays an important role in science and engineering - and our pursuits in knowledge, in general. The only difference I see between science and engineering pursuits is that focus - Science's main preoccupation is that of understanding the world that exists around us, whereas, Engineering's preoccupation is that of making useful products for the human kind. I am hoping that I will be able to tease out more on the similarities between science and engineering in the upcoming posts.
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