The eccentric engineer: Engineering's near misses, heroic failures and plain rotten luck

HISTORY IS WRITTEN by the victors, or at least it's written about the victors, and this column is as guilty of that as any other. Yet in focusing on the glory, I wonder if I fail to give a genuine picture of engineering and invention. The Brunels, Teslas and Leonardos of this world were undoubtedly brilliant and tenacious, but they were lucky. There have been other engineers who have worked just as hard, perhaps with just as much vision, but perhaps the dice simply never landed well for them. This month's column is a tribute to them and particularly the unluckiest engineers of all.