Myron Tribus

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Myron T. Tribus ( October 30, 1921 - ) is perhaps best known as former director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Study at MIT. He headed the center when it published W. Edwards Deming's book, Out of the Crisis, and became a leading supporter and interpreter of W. Edwards Deming. He is also known in the 1970s for an insightful book called Rational descriptions, decisions and designs which popularized Bayesian methods with examples. In the 1960s, Tribus coined the term "thermoeconomics".

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[edit] Background

Dr. Tribus was born in San Francisco. He graduated in 1942 from UCLA, and received his Ph.D in 1949 . He was a captain in the airforce during World War II, and worked as a design-development officer at Wright Field. He received the Thurman Bane award and the Wright Brothers Medal[1] [2], as well as the Alfred Noble Prize (as a joint award from seven societies) [3] for his work developing a thermal ice protection system for aircraft. He joined General Electric and became a gas turbine design engineer, but was unhappy in industry, and went back to academia, joining the faculty of UCLA where he taught thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. He was a visiting professor and director of research at the University of Michigan between 1951and 1953 .

In 1961, he was named dean of Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering.[4], where he led the faculty in developing a new curriculum based on engineering design and entrepreneurship. He saw hands-on engineering design as being essential at all levels of the curriculum, saying, "Knowledge without know-how is sterile." [5] In 1969, Tribus accepted a post in the Johnson administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Science and Technology. On November 23, 1970, he left the commerce department to become Senior V.P. for Research & Engineering in Xerox Corp.[6]

He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering on 1973, under Special Fields & Interdisciplinary Engineering, for his contributions to applied sciences that support engineering, to engineering education, and for professional service in education, government, and industry.

[edit] Center for Advanced Engineering Study

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From 1974 to 1986 Tribus directed the Center for Advanced Engineering Study at MIT.

Myron Tribus "Perversity Principle": "If you try to improve the performance of a system of people, machines, and procedures by setting numerical goals for the improvement of individual parts of the system, the system will defeat your efforts and you will pay a price where you least expect it."[7].

[edit] Afterwards

Tribus is a co-founder of Exergy Inc., a company specializing in the design of advanced, high-efficiency power production systems. In recent years he has focused on the theory of structural cognitive modifiability of Dr. Reuven Feuerstein, an Israeli psychologist.

In 1998, he was awarded the Deming Lecturer Award for "The Contributions of W. Edwards Deming to the Improvement of Education"

[edit] Publications

He has published over 100 papers on topics ranging from academic subjects, such as heat transfer, fluid mechanics, probability theory, statistical inference, and thermodynamics, to applied topics such as sea water demineralization, aircraft heating, aircraft ice prevention, and the design of engineering curricula. He also had a strong influence concerning the domains of industrial quality, ergonomics, and education. Tribus published two books; Thermostatics and Thermodynamics, which provided the first textbook that bases the laws of thermodynamics on information theory rather than on the classical arguments, and Rational Descriptions, Decisions, and Designs, which introduces Bayesian Decision methods into the engineering design process.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Wins Bane Aviation Award, NY Times, January 18, 1946, p4
  2. ^ AIR ENGINEERS GET PRAISE FOR WAR AID; A DOUBLE CELEBRATION IN THE CAPITAL OF JAPAN, NY Times, January 29, 1946, p9
  3. ^ Myron Tribus, 1961, Thermodynamics and Thermostatics: An Introduction to Energy, Information and States of Matter, with Engineering Applications, Back dust cover, D. Van Nostrand Company Inc., 24 West 40 Street, New York 18, New York, U.S.A.
  4. ^ Dartmouth Names Dean at Thayer, NY Times, January 11, 1961, p15
  5. ^ History Thayer School Deans, Dartmouth.edu
  6. ^ Commerce Aide Resigns, NY Times, November 24, 1970, p48
  7. ^ Myron Tribus, Quality First, Washington, D.C.: National Society of Professional Engineers (#1459), 1992

[edit] Bibliography

Tribus, Myron (1961). Thermodynamics and Thermostatics: An Introduction to Energy, Information and States of Matter, with Engineering Applications. D. Van Nostrand Company Inc., 24 West 40 Street, New York 18, New York, U.S.A.. ASIN: B000ARSH5S. 

Tribus, Myron (1969). Rational Descriptions, Decisions and Designs. Pergamon Press Inc., Maxwell House Fairview Park Elmsford, New York 10523. ISBN 0-08-006393-4. 

Tribus, Myron (1978). The Maximum Entropy Formalism (ed. R. D. Levine and M. Tribus). MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12080-1. 

Tribus, Myron (1989). Deployment flow charting. Quality & Productivity, Inc. ASIN: B00072FLOG. 

Tribus, Myron (1992). Quality first: Selected papers on quality and productivity improvement. National Society of Professional Engineers; 4th ed edition. ASIN: B0006OXP8Y. 

Tribus, Myron (1992). The Germ theory of management. SPC Press, Inc. ISBN 0-945320-33-7. 

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