Evolutions gift of curiosity

Poking The System: Why Engineers Are Just Following Human Nature

Engineers, we're all pokers. And I mean that scientifically.

Neuroscience tells us humans evolved with predictive brains. We don't just passively observe the world—we actively probe it. Our ancestors poked at unfamiliar plants to see if they were edible. They tested tools to understand their breaking points. They disturbed their environment systematically to build mental models of cause and effect.

This isn't just curiosity. It's survival strategy encoded in our neural architecture: Predict → Poke → Observe → Update Model → Repeat.

As structural dynamics engineers, we're doing exactly what our brains were built for—just with more sophisticated tools.

When we drop test a tablet computer, we're poking a complex system. When we run modal analysis on a circuit board, we're predicting how it wants to respond. When we compare FEA results to test data, we're updating our mental model based on prediction error.

Here's what most engineers miss: Every physical system has a "nature"—a characteristic way it prefers to respond to disturbances. Real devices aren't simple systems; they're composites of dozens or hundreds of subsystems, each with its own personality defined by natural frequencies and mode shapes.

Understanding this composite nature transforms how we:

·        Design products that won't fail

·        Plan tests that reveal real vulnerabilities

·        Interpret noisy data from simulations

·        Predict failure modes before they happen

I've just completed an audiobook and technical guide called "Understanding Systems: The Composite Nature of Structural Response" that explores this philosophy in depth. It connects the fundamental human activity of "poking to understand" with sophisticated tools like Shock Response Spectra and modal analysis.

The core message? Strip away the jargon, and structural dynamics is just intelligent poking. We disturb systems, observe responses, and use that information to understand their fundamental nature.

Whether you're a test engineer running drop tests, a CAE analyst building FE models, or a designer making trade-offs between mass and stiffness—you're engaging in the same predictive-probing behavior that made humans successful as a species.

The audiobook and essay link-> McFadden

What's your favorite example of "poking a system" to understand its behavior?

#StructuralDynamics #MechanicalEngineering #ProductDesign #CAE #TestEngineering #ModalAnalysis #ShockAndVibration #EngineeringPhilosophy #PredictiveProcessing