Extreme Engineering
Scientific American Presents

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Cover; Extreme Engineering; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Table of Contents; Extreme Engineering; by Staff Editor; 2 Page(s)

Masthead; Extreme Engineering; by Staff Editor; 1 Page(s)

Engineering at the Edge of the Possible; Extreme Engineering; by Raikhel, Staff Editors; 6 Page(s)

For millennia, engineers have pushed the limits of human ingenuity. Here are some of their all-time greatest achievements.

The Big, The Small/Mighty Monolith; Extreme Engineering; by Kosowatz; 10 Page(s)

The largest dam in history is being constructed at China's Three Gorges. The controversial $27-billion project won't be completed until 2009

The Big, The Small/Some Assembly Required; Extreme Engineering; by Nemecek; 4 Page(s)

Scientists can now grab an individual atom and place it exactly where they want. Welcome to the new and exciting world of atomic engineering

The Big, The Small/Building Gargantuan Software; Extreme Engineering; by Freeman; 4 Page(s)

Everything about Windows 2000 is huge, starting with its 29 million lines of code. To tame this monster, Microsoft had to develop a new set of strategies, all while getting more than 4,000 computer geeks to work as a team

The Big, The Small/Life in Space; Extreme Engineering; by Beardsley; 2 Page(s)

The International Space Station, the only extraterrestrial construction project, will be ready for inhabitants by March 2000

The Big, The Small/A Small World; Extreme Engineering; by Voss; 4 Page(s)

Miniature diagnostic labs, PCR-on-a-chip, handheld biotoxin sensors and other reports from the world of microscopic biological and medical devices

The Big, The Small/Bringing Back the Barrier; Extreme Engineering; by Holloway; 4 Page(s)

Louisiana is working to protect its rapidly disappearing wetlands, including restoring an entire island

The Powerful, The Strong, The Fast/Seven Wonders of Modern Astronomy; Extreme Engineering; by Musser; 8 Page(s)

The most amazing telescopes and how they work

The Powerful, The Strong, The Fast/A Bridge to a Composite Future; Extreme Engineering; by Netting; 2 Page(s)

Can a bridge made of glass and carbon support four lanes of traffic?

The Powerful, The Strong, The Fast/Subterranean Speed Record; Extreme Engineering; by Nemecek; 4 Page(s)

The massive installment currently under construction near Geneva will be the fastest particle accelerator ever built. When it opens in 2005, it will also be the largest science experiment in the world

The Powerful, The Strong, The Fast /Blitzing Bits; Extreme Engineering; by Gibbs; 6 Page(s)

Supercomputers aim for petaflops - a quadrillion floating-point operations per second.

The Powerful, The Strong, The Fast /Harder Than Rocket Science; Extreme Engineering; by Howard; 4 Page(s)

If launching a rocket to the moon sounds tough, try flying an aircraft into space at speeds topping Mach 20

The Tall, The Deep, The Long/The Sky's the Limit; Extreme Engineering; by Hayashi; 7 Page(s)

Future skyscrapers will lift high-rise technology to new heights. But the economic challenges are daunting

The Tall, The Deep, The Long/To the Bottom of the Sea; Extreme Engineering; by Roesset; 5 Page(s)

Offshore structures have been built in more than 3,000 feet of water. How much deeper can the technology be pushed?

The Tall, The Deep, The Long/Designer Genomes; Extreme Engineering; by Hopkin; 4 Page(s)

As efforts accelerate to catalogue the lengthy stretches of DNA responsible for life, scientists are getting closer to being able to build living cells from scratch

The Tall, The Deep, The Long /Bridging Borders in Scandinavia; Extreme Engineering; by Lundhus; 8 Page(s)

The Øresund Bridge and Tunnel will join Denmark and Sweden on July 1, 2000. Prefabrication of the project's complex components facilitated construction

The Greatest Projects Never Built; Extreme Engineering; by Alpert; 4 Page(s)

Many well-laid engineering plans went astray - and in some cases, it was lucky they did

The Hubris of Extreme Engineering; Extreme Engineering; by Petroski; 11 Page(s)

"Engineers can come to believe in themselves and their creations beyond reasonable limits. When failures do occur, they naturally cause setbacks but usually do not force the abandonment of dreams for ever grander and more ambitious projects."