Sophie
Not Thurstons best work
The book easily should have been restructured. It starts off in technical detail describing the slow process of a certain theory in boilers explosions before, but not 50 pages in does it switch to the main theme of explosions being mainly a case of bad management or construction. After proposing that second theory it’s a bit of a slog as it explains all the different boiler parts that could be mismanaged, but the last 50 pages or so just being analysis of historical explosions relating to the likely causes brings it back from the deep theoretical cases it was mentioning before. I do like the setup of the book in that it was a response to a letter from the US Secretary of Treasury asking Thurston how to reduce boiler explosion incidents and the final page being a 9 step list of all reasons and actions you should take to prevent explosions in the future
Definitely not a book I would recommend, but one with a couple interesting chapters for those studying older scientific research processes
Not Thurstons best work
The book easily should have been restructured. It starts off in technical detail describing the slow process of a certain theory in boilers explosions before, but not 50 pages in does it switch to the main theme of explosions being mainly a case of bad management or construction. After proposing that second theory it’s a bit of a slog as it explains all the different boiler parts that could be mismanaged, but the last 50 pages or so just being analysis of historical explosions relating to the likely causes brings it back from the deep theoretical cases it was mentioning before. I do like the setup of the book in that it was a response to a letter from the US Secretary of Treasury asking Thurston how to reduce boiler explosion incidents and the final page being a 9 step list of all reasons and actions you should take to prevent explosions in the future
Definitely not a book I would recommend, but one with a couple interesting chapters for those studying older scientific research processes
