This is an old materials engineering handbook that was given to me by a professor upon his retirement from my undergrad university. I believe he rescued it from as it was being retired from the university library. When he was cleaning out his office, he asked a few students to come in, individually, and select two or three books out of his professional library. He’d gotten all the books he wished to keep and wanted to see the rest be put to some use. Though I think he wasn’t entirely sure of all of my selections were so wise (namely, this particular book, as I recall — due to it being sorely outdated by modern experimentation techniques), he let me part with some books that I did indeed find useful.

More importantly, I think, he sent me with a wealth of wisdom about what it means to be a good engineer. The bits of advice he would pass on felt to me like true pages of secret wisdom that had been lost on my generation of engineers. Whether it was proper handwriting technique or that an engineer should maintain a personal library, he knew that teaching students was even more than the technical fundamentals. Being a professional goes far beyond running a set of numbers.