… Book Review: To Forgive Design - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… the St. Lawrence accident had many consequences, but two in particular stand out. The first was the determination of Canadian engineers to set and maintain higher standards. The engineers reminded themselves of why they had to aim higher by wearing an iron pinkie ring and observing rituals that included reading the Rudyard Kipling poem "Hymn of the Breaking Strain": "So when the buckled girder / Lets down the grinding span / The blame of loss, or murder, / Is laid upon the man. / Not on the stuff—the man!"
The second consequence, Mr. Petroski says, was that after the disaster in Quebec, engineers around the world began preferring to use suspension bridges to cover wide expanses.
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