Quotes by JP Giroud

Engineering is done with numbers, not with common sense.

All physical phenomena can be expressed mathematically.

The equation that expresses a phenomenon may be discovered, not invented. To discover means to remove the cover that kept the equation unknown so far. To invent means to create. An equation that describes a phenomenon cannot be invented because this would mean that a phenomenon can be invented.

There is a theory behind every engineering phenomenon or mechanism. It just needs to be discovered.

All engineering phenomena must be analyzed and quantified. Phenomena that may intuitively appear to be significant may appear to be insignificant once they are quantified. However, it is important to document and remember the analysis leading to the quantification because it may eventually be used to demonstrate that the same phenomenon is not insignificant under other circumstances.

A good engineer is an engineer who performs analyses that lead to quantified solutions.

“Be paid what you are worth, if not you will be worth what you are repaid.” By Pierre Elbaz

Send invoices promptly. There is no example of a client paying an invoice before receiving it.

The mission of a consulting engineer is not to tell what the client wants to hear. The mission of a consulting engineer is to deliver sound analyses and designs.

The worst situation I witnessed is that of a design engineer who published a paper with sound recommendations and, shortly after, wrote the opposite in a design report to please the client and the regulators. A major failure occurred shortly after the structure was commissioned and it was easy to find the cause.

Do not be ashamed of making simple assumptions provided they are justified.

Assumptions must be simple to make analyses possible and must be realistic to lead to meaningful results.

Keep it simple to be able to do it.

If you develop, or learn, a new equation, test it with many numerical applications. You may thus find that it gives bizarre results in some cases. This is enlightening because it indicates that more work is needed on the analysis that led to that equation.

Research papers are generally too complex for the practicing engineers who would benefit from their findings. Researchers should ‘translate’: translate their findings into simple terms and translate their results into practical recommendations.

Geotechnical engineering is an outdoor sport. Practicing geotechnical engineering only in an office is not appropriate.

Good field observation is not possible without a strong theoretical knowledge.

You must go to the field with preconceived ideas to be able to observe, but you must be prepared to change your mind.

Engineering judgement is often invoked to justify a decision. Ideally, engineering judgement is based on extensive experience, sound engineering principles, and adequate analysis. In reality, engineering judgement is often used as an excuse for lazy engineers who do not make the effort of conducting analyses.

I agree with the famous physicist, Richard Feynman, who wrote : “when I hear the words ‘engineering judgement’, I know they are just going to make up numbers”.

Common sense is a random process. Common sense can be wrong, as well as it can be right. Since the basis for common sense is not known, it is not possible to distinguish between the good and bad aspects of common sense. As a result, common sense is not reliable.

The most dangerous engineers are those who have some authority because they have experience and claim that their experience is based on common sense instead of using rational analyses to draw lessons from their experience.  

Making mistakes is a part of engineering. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it immediately, correct it as soon as possible, learn from it, take measures to avoid making the same mistake again, and return to work as a stronger engineer.

A design engineer should never take a risk such that, if a failure occurs, it can be explained by an expert using design methods known at the time the design was done or it can be explained by an expert performing a rational analysis.

Geotechnical engineers who do not learn from successes achieved by others will miss opportunities. Geotechnical engineers who do not learn from mistakes made by others will learn from their own mistakes.

Excessive reliance on precedents may be dangerous. Geotechnical engineers are trained to believe what has been observed before. Therefore, they are not well prepared for new modes of failure.

New modes of failure are possible.

We must believe in failure predictions that are based on rational analyses, even if the predicted mode of failure was never observed before. Designing only on the basis of precedents may lead to failures. Ignoring precedents may also lead to failures.

Published theoretical solutions are generally right. The results of rational analyses based on published theoretical solutions must be believed, especially if a failure is predicted.

Conducting a thorough analysis may be hard. Not conducting a thorough analysis may cause hardship.

It is “known” that failures occur to others. Any design engineer can be one of the “others”.

A recipe to cause a failure it to tell what the client wants to hear rather than the truth.

There is a name for the action of a design engineer who agrees to be paid to tell what the client wants to hear: corruption.

If you work for a party in a litigation and if expert witnesses working for other parties distort the truth, your best answer is to tell the truth.

Repeat, repeat and repeat, because what you need to repeat will need to be repeated again.

My best reward as a professor was to learn from what my students had learned from me.

Humor in a presentation is acceptable only if closely related to the subject, or better if it is inspired by the subject. Such situations are rare. “Imported humor” is always counterproductive.

Never waste time complaining that the time allotted to your presentation is too short. Wasting a precious resource indicates that you are a poor engineer, which decreases your credibility as a lecturer.

If you want to capture the audience’s attention, start your presentation with a catchy statement related to the subject, such as a strong sentence from the conclusion of the presentation.

Never start a presentation by giving an outline of the presentation. If you want to put the audience asleep, start your presentation with the list of subjects you will address from “Introduction” to “Conclusion”. Would you be excited by a movie that starts with the film director explaining “I will show a dead body, then I will present several possible suspects, and I will describe the investigation, which led to the conclusion that the culprit was not one of the initially considered suspects”?

Question and answer sessions are important. Elementary questions asked by attendees who are not familiar with the subject are often the best questions, the questions that pose the greatest challenge to the lecturer. Therefore, the questions from which the lecturer will learn most.

Do not write for you. Write for the reader.

Write clearly and explain all. Do not force the reader to guess.

Provide detailed explanations. The reader is not supposed to guess what you think you would guess if you were the reader.

Be aware that different readers have different ways of understanding. If you have something important to explain, explain it again in a different way in a sentence that starts with “In other words”.

Do not use jargon or expressions that cannot be understood by readers working in a different discipline.

Always remember that acronyms you consider evident may not be understood by the reader. Use acronyms only if they are better known than the spelled-out term, such as PVC.

Most readers will have forgotten on page 2 the acronyms you have defined on page 1, unless they are acronyms known by all, and which do not need to be defined.

A comparative, such as “larger” must always be followed by “than”. Of course, you know “larger than what” but, if you do not explain, the reader will need to guess and there is a non-negligible probability that the reader will not guess what you have in mind.

If you write “on one hand” you must then write “on the other hand”. If you write “on the other hand”, this may or may not need to be preceded by “on one hand”.

Avoid using the adjectives such as “good” or “poor” and adverbs such as “well” or “poorly”. Nature is neither good nor bad. Nature is. There is no such thing as a good soil or a poor soil. There are soils with measurable properties and geotechnical engineers must be able to construct with all soils.

Some well-known and even standardized expressions are incorrect. For example, expressions such as “well graded” and “poorly graded”. For example, a so-called well-graded soil may a poor choice in some applications.

In an engineering document, if you mention several times the same thing, always use the same words. If you mention a cat in a sentence, keep calling it a cat in subsequent sentences. Do not call it a feline in the second sentence and a kitten in the third sentence. As we say in French, a cat is to be called a cat.

Be prudent. If you calculated a settlement value, do not write “the settlement will be” or “the settlement is expected to be” and even try to avoid writing “the predicted settlement is”. Simply write “the calculated settlement is”.

Never write “this solution is conservative” because conservativeness depends on the way the solution is used. Thus, a solution that is conservative in a design situation is generally unconservative in performance evaluation or forensic analysis.

Do not write “it is highly recommended” and do not say “I highly recommend”. Do not write “it is strongly recommended” and do not say “I strongly recommend”. Rather than writing or saying “strongly”, be strong and write “it is recommended” and say “I recommend”. If you are not convinced that adverbs like “very” and “highly” weakens your recommendation, compare “I love you” and “I love you very much”.

Do numerical examples. There are cases where numerical examples show that the phenomenon analyzed is negligible. This is a very useful result, which can only be revealed by numerical examples.

Be modest. Do not write: “The equation is valid.”. Write: “The equation is applicable.”. Indeed, you never know. A better equation may be published in the future.

When you write an important statement, make sure the statement, when extracted from the paper, can be cited verbatim. Thus, do not start the important statement by a word like “This”, which refers to something defined in the preceding sentence.

Do not write “the former” and “the latter”. This often causes confusion because it is often not clear which former or which latter you are referring to. Just repeat.

Present numerical applications of equations in papers. Many readers who hesitate using equations are impressed when they see that an equation provides adequate answers.

If you want to improve your English, learn another language.

Be simple. Be consistent.

Be logical: if you list items do not put them in random order.

Eliminate useless words to be stronger:  I clearly understand,  I love you very much.

Never use the adjective ‘incredible’ to qualify something you consider excellent. Only use ‘incredible’ to qualify something that is not credible and that you recommend to ignore.