Reliability Engineering in Europe

Abstract

During the recent years, in connection with the increasing importance acquired in human life by the “artificial world”, as compared to the “natural world”, we have seen to the birth and growth of many new technical-scientific disciplines. Machines, industrial organizations, socio-technical organizations, have many characteristics in common with natural realities: they can be the subject of contemplation and investigation, they stimulate curiosity and desire for knowledge, and they can also be subject matter for descriptive sciences. But the word “artificial” has a specific significance: it means, designed by man. Therefore the sciences of the artificial are double-faced: at one extreme they are looking at artefacts as natural phenomena, while at the other extreme, they are looking at ways to create new artefacts. This second aspect has acquired the connotation of “science” instead of “art”, when its link with the knowledge of the deep world of the human mind has been fully recognized.