InThe Existential Pleasures of Engineering, a book I wrote in 1976, I suggested that the years between 1850 and 1950 might well be called the Golden Age of Engineering.

Before 1850 there had been many important inventions and technological achievements but few schools and societies that are key elements today of engineering professionalism.

In 1852 the American Society of Civil Engineers was founded, just one indication of the spectacular advances to be made in the century ahead in machinery, transport, electricity, chemistry and communications—a golden age indeed.

但是在1950年之后，我担心工程学进入了公众批评和自我怀疑的黑暗时代。

For a specific date of gathering gloom I chose January 31, 1950—the day President Truman announced that work would begin on development of the hydrogen bomb.

这一事件促使阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦（Albert Einstein）预测，“最终招呼，越来越清楚，一般歼灭”。这并不是所有的坏消息。

Even if we managed to escape nuclear holocaust, it suddenly seemed as if our technology might be making the earth uninhabitable. Warnings reverberated throughout Earth Week in 1970, and the late Sen. Vance Hartke (D-Ind.) exclaimed that, "a runaway technology, whose only law is profit, has for years poisoned our air, ravaged our soil, stripped our forests bare, and corrupted our water resources."

可是等等。一切都没有丢失。即使悲观主义似乎即将接管，对未来的新希望以计算机的形式出现。

1964年，当我在纽约世界博览会的联邦馆做建筑工作时，我们为魔法机器（Univac）准备了一个房间。尽管我们建造了一种特殊的空调系统，但这种奇妙的装置肯定令人印象深刻，尽管它的5,000个产生的真空管（因为我们构建了一种特殊的空调系统），可以将其从群众中删除。

We never dreamed about what was coming. By 1980 the vacuum tubes were a thing of the past. The transistor had taken over, a million personal computers were on the market, and the world had changed.

Where are the Important Inventions?

So I prepared to rejoin the optimists. But still I wondered. Has our march into the future resumed with zest and increasing benefits for humankind?

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-winning economist and op-ed columnist for theNew York Times最近表达了怀疑。

他说：“事实是，如果您从最新小工具的头条新闻中退后一步，很明显，自1970年以来，我们的进步较少，而在生活的基本面上的变化要少得多。任何人都期望。”

Krugman has been impressed by a recently published book—美国成长的兴衰历史学家,经济学家Robert j . Gordon-which基于“增大化现实”技术gues that achievements in information and communication technology are not nearly as important as the Great Inventions that powered economic growth back in the wonder century (which he identifies as 1870 to 1970, 20 years later than mine).

These Great Inventions extended life expectancy and changed the quality of life—health, safety, sanitation, working conditions, comfort, mobility, communications—in the most basic ways. Dipping into Gordon's book I find that, as he sees it, recent economic growth—since 1970—"has been simultaneously dazzling and disappointing," having to do with entertainment, communications, and the collection and processing of information. The 100-year post-1870 economic revolution is, he maintains, "unique and impossible to repeat."

These economists are interesting folks, and it appears that Gordon, as well as his admirer Mr. Krugman, has ethical and political ideas that go beyond plain statistics.

For example, Mr. Gordon opines that "any consideration of U.S. economic progress must look beyond innovation" to deal with the "headwinds" blowing against the vessel of progress. "Chief among these headwinds is the rise of inequality that since 1970 has steadily directed an ever larger share of the fruits of the American growth machine to the top of the income distribution."

Economics v. Civil Engineering

As I explore, be it ever so superficially, the field of economics—the academic discipline, the social science—I find that the world out there is very different from my world of civil engineering and building construction.

And yet in the daily newspapers the journalists do their best to bring us all together.

就在几周前，我在New York Timesheadlined "Hiring Rises: Output Lags. It's a Mystery."

It seems that in the year just ended in March 2016, the number of hours Americans worked rose 1.9%. Good news, except that new data just released shows that the gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2016 was also up 1.9% over the previous year. So, despite constant advances in software, equipment and management practices, we're not getting more efficient.

And just think how disappointing this is compared to earlier times when the figures showed increased efficiency each and every year.

Yet the article ends on a cheerful note by pointing out that several companies are currently hard at work trying to perfect driverless cars. Perhaps today's slow productivity growth is just a down payment on a much brighter future!

好吧，我不知道。我们应该微笑还是皱眉？在施工中，我们受益于计算机辅助设计，但仍面临钢和混凝土中不确定的市场。预制结构？当然是时候了。还是有？机会 - 未知，意外？

A Clear Productivity Gain

Ah yes—chance. I remember clearly the one leap in productivity from which I anticipated receiving substantial benefits. It was In the middle 1960s—some 50 years ago—while building an apartment house in Brooklyn.

在这种情况下，内壁是由两层涂抹在金属板条上的石膏涂料的时间远古，在这种情况下被新接受的产品取代：石膏板，也称为Sheetrock。

Our world then was truly changing. The savings in time were known to be considerable, and we could hardly wait to enjoy the increase in profits that would accrue.

然而，发生的事情 - 至少在这个项目中 - 由工会领导人组织成好战的部队的石膏者进军抗议，甚至诉诸暴力。

It was a last gasp for the plastering trade, a fateful event, and fate had sent it my way. Police entered the scene, chaos prevailed, and the resulting extra costs were painful, a lesson in economic planning that I have never forgotten.

我并不是要贬低经济分析的世界。技术停滞的问题值得我们注意。

I'm somewhat less certain than I once was about defining the Golden Age of Engineering. But this sort of uncertainty helps to keep us alert.

塞缪尔·弗洛曼（Samuel C. Florman）是美国土木工程师，总承包商和作者。他以有关工程，技术和一般文化的著作和演讲而闻名。他的作品，包括The Existential Pleasures of Engineeringand a memoir:好人，明智的人，并建造建筑物；建筑中的生活, are being re-released as digital books.