Space Mapping-Have You Ever Wondered About the Engineer's Mysterious "Feel" for a Problem? [Speaker's Corner]

"Come and look at this," Steve Chen said in 1993. I still see him in the doorway, beckoning me, and I remember where his computer stood and how it was oriented as I leaned toward its screen seconds later for my first glimpse at the results of a novel approach to automated design, a technique that I believe encapsulates the engineer's mysterious "feel" for a problem-an issue that had dogged my 30-year immersion in the art and science of optimization for computer-oriented engineering design.