本期Hidden Forces节目中，Demetri Kofinas与Simon Winchester探讨了现代社会中精度的价值（以及不完美）。精确工程在很大程度上塑造了现代世界，但它对我们来说却几乎是无形的。我们生活在一个可定制的世界，期望世界符合我们的期望、需求和欲望。然而，在这个个性化和复杂表层之下，存在着一个精确的世界，精确到我们无法察觉。Simon Winchester在书中生动地描述了这个日益完美的、统一的、重复的世界。这场对话既不是对精度的赞美，也不是对完美的批评。它既是对人类在重塑世界中所展现的天才的评论，也是对赋予其意义的工艺和个人触感的致敬。我们对完美的不懈追求是最人性化的。然而，无论我们多么努力，我们都无法消除世界上所有的不完美。毕竟，人性本身就是不可救药地、美丽地、致命地有缺陷的。

🎯 精确工程在塑造现代世界中发挥着至关重要的作用，但我们却很少注意到它。现代社会追求个性化和复杂性，但其背后隐藏着一个精确而无形的世界。

🎯 追求完美是人类的天性，但过度的追求会带来风险。例如，飞机引擎的微小缺陷会导致灾难性的后果，如1989年联合航空公司航班事故。

🎯 随着技术的不断发展，我们对精确度的需求也越来越高。然而，我们也需要意识到，完美并非万能，不完美也是人类的一部分。

🎯 追求完美的同时，我们也需要关注工艺和个人触感，赋予世界意义。这不仅是技术问题，也是一个关于如何构建理想世界的哲学问题。

In Episode 52 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Simon Winchester about the value of precision (and imperfection) in the modern age.

Few things are as responsible for the making of the modern world as precision engineering; yet, it is largely invisible to us. We live our lives in a customizable fashion, expecting the world to conform to our expectations, wants, and desires. And yet, below this surface layer of personalization and complexity exists a world of exactness so precise that it evades our capacity to notice it. It is this world of increasing perfection, uniformity, and repetition that Simon Winchester writes so eloquently about.

This conversation is neither a salute to precision nor a rebuke of perfection. It is a commentary on both the genius brought to bear by humanity in reshaping the world, as well as an homage to the craftsmanship and personal touch that has given it meaning.

Our endless striving for that which is flawless is most human. Yet, try as we might, we cannot rid the world of all its imperfections. Humanity, after all, is by its very nature hopelessly, beautifully, fatally flawed. "To err is human," said Alexander Pope. Forgiveness is divine.

In chronicling the history of precision engineering, Simon Winchester, has not only found something forgivable in humanity's shortcomings but indeed, something worthy of honor and celebration.

In his book, “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World” Winchester asks whether a wish for perfection is actually essential to modern health and happiness, whether it is “a necessary component of our very being?” He answers with a resounding, “no.”

Yet, the problem, as Winchester articulates it, is not simply an existential one. It is a technical one as well.

For proof, we’ve only to look to our jet engines, where microscopic errors can quickly cause cascading problems that lead to catastrophic loss of life. In fact, this is exactly what happened in 1989 on a United Airlines flight, when a microscopic metallurgical defect in the titanium disk caused the engine to fail. 112 people died as a result. Unfortunately, such tales aren’t relegated to the annals of history. Many similar events have occurred in the decades since. If the past is any guide, then as our technologies continue to multiply (we made 13 trillion transistors each second of 2015) and shrink in size, we can expect the threats associated with them to become larger and more pronounced.

In today’s episode, Simon Winchester joins host Demetri Kofinas for a conversation that is equally a discussion of the significance of exponential technologies, an investigation into the kind of world we want to build, and an exploration of what it means to have a life well lived.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod