Stanford Engineering -- Ask the Expert

ASK THE EXPERT: Are our satellites in danger?

8 Jun 2010 19:10:22 GMT

The space environment, especially right around Earth, is anything but the vast empty expanse we imagine space to be. For as long as they are in orbit, satellites fly through a gauntlet of man-made debris, meteoroids and radiation.

Can we read thoughts, and are there ones we shouldn’t?

7 Apr 2010 03:14:08 GMT

In a limited way, the answer is “Yes, we can read some thoughts.” Already the neuroscience and neuroethics communities are thinking quite a bit about where these capabilities should take us.

Can design change behavior?

18 Dec 2009 19:14:08 GMT

People are "predictably irrational," meaning that while changing their behavior can be a matter of appealing to emotion, it can be done via a scientific approach. The discipline perhaps best suited to effecting changes in behavior, such as living more sustainably, is design, argues professor Banny Banerjee.

How have changes in materials changed painting since the Renaissance?

5 Oct 2009 17:38:40 GMT

Chemical Engineering Professor Curt Frank says: People celebrate paintings as aesthetic achievements and for the profound messages they often convey, but I also like to appreciate them as works of engineering. Art history has unfolded not only by means of cultural shifts, but also because of available technology. Chemical engineering and materials science have a real influence on the finest and most revered expressions of human creativity...

How could engineering education be improved?

29 Jul 2009 17:38:40 GMT

Mechanical Engineering Professor Sherri Sheppard says: It happens all too often. A student in the second semester of her second year is cramming theories into her head for a midterm, and wondering yet again when, or if, she’ll ever put them to use. That’s a central challenge facing engineering education all across the country. Engineering, after all, is about actions that effect real change in the world. A new school of thought about what we teach undergraduate engineers would elevate professional practice and moderate the primacy that theory has been given in traditional academic engineering curricula. I believe this new approach...

What is 'synthetic biology'?

10 Jun 2009 21:29:23 GMT

Bioengineering Assistant Professor Drew Endy says: Synthetic biology is a broad field of research that brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in assembling and engineering living matter. For the engineering community, in particular, synthetic biology has focused attention on improving the process by which we design and build living organisms. Stated differently, can we make biology easy to engineer?

Can Computers Think or Feel?

6 Apr 2009 21:31:02 GMT

Computer science Professor Yoav Shoham says: Funny you should ask. I teach a class for freshmen on exactly this topic. At the beginning and end of the quarter I poll the students on what they think the answers are (beside thinking and feeling I also ask about concepts such as free will, creativity, and even consciousness). Invariably, over the course of the class, students either become much more generous to computers, or at least start to question some of their biases regarding the human experience. And along the way they get a glimpse into the deep and beautiful intellectual underpinnings of computer science.