First off, I am truly ashamed. I had a copy of Karl Terzaghi’s biography by Richard Goodman loaned to me for probably the last year and have yet to read it. Before I write any more of this blog post, I want to ask my readers to hold me accountable…I will read this book before his next birthday (which will be a nice round 130 years). Feel free to tweet, email, call or otherwise harass me by next September…just keep it within reason (I’m talking to you, internet nut-jobs).
I am hardly alone in celebrating the anniversary of THE giant in our profession, the father of soil mechanics and in some respects the father of all of us that practice geotechnical engineering. For the past few years, I’ve felt like I’ve been going back and forth with my friend Robert Thompson at Dan Brown and Associates, not to mention Geoengineer.org, the G-I and others, trying to not get beat to the punch with the Happy Birthday KT blog post. I decided to do things a little differently this year, not to try and upstage anyone, but to mix things up and to try to follow through on a promise I made in my last monthly newsletter – to do a better job of engaging my fellow geo-professionals in more of a dialogue on this website, and through social media.
So I have prepared 12 tweets (follow @geoprac) containing miscellaneous facts about Karl Terzaghi, or quotes from him that I found while (hanging head) thumbing through Professor Goodman’s book. The tweets have already been scheduled to be posted throughout the day to avoid spamming my followers all at once, and to keep you on the edge of your seats! I knew a few things about him, but I was completely blown away by the extent of his travels, and the brushes he had with history and with famous/infamous people. I am also continually amazed at how he managed to bring to bear his skills in engineering geology, theory, and his amazing observation on some enormously complicated geotechnical projects.
So I hope you will join me in celebrating a great day for all of us in geo-engineering. Make sure you follow me @geoprac and share you’re favorite 140 character Terzaghi quotes or info using the hashtag #Terzaghi. You can also see the Terzaghi Tweets on the GeoPrac.net Facebook page where you are welcome to share as well.
P.S. – I see Robert has beat me to it again…darn time zone difference. Well played my friend, well played.
Happy KTB Randy!
Actually, I knew I was going to be late into the office, so I wrote the blog post last night and had it in the que scheduled to post. I figured folks expected it and did not want to let them down!
Same to you, Robert!
I know how it is…I was getting all of the tweets queued up last night, something I’ve never really done before. You are right, I think we have definitely started a nice tradition here, one that people do look forward to.