Recently, I had the opportunity to go on a fishing trip. It was a “deep-sea” excursion from the northern tip of Plum Island in New England. The recommended method of trickery was to put some pieces of squid on a hook, weight the line with a 16-ounce hunk of lead and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean. As they say, “even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.” So it was with me and fishing.
The real purpose of this short fish story isn’t to educate you about fishing in New England. The intent is to remind us about a style of engineering where we take what we’ve learned and use the lens of everyday life to design systems. The experience I had fishing that summer day makes me think about the concept of pressure and how I discuss pressure with colleagues and clients. For me, one of the keys to understanding engineering principles and concepts like pressure is through unit conversion.