21st Century Engineering by Anirudh Dhebar
August 2025
Don’t just optimize; create a breakthrough
In the third of three columns focusing on the need to
complement traditional approaches to optimization, I take
up the case of the creative over the optimal. Yes, there
are times when engineers must crunch their way to an
optimal solution – and there are occasions when what is
called for is not some true-and-tried, (also “tired?”) within-the-
flatland optimum but instead some out-of-the-box
creative breakthrough.
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