Professor Shih's Engineering Dictionary

History: One day, in our weekly research group meeting, I asked a post-doc to use 2x4 in his experiment. He was puzzled: what is "2x4"? On the same day, we celebrated the PhD scholarship offer to a MS student who worked hard as a "walk-on." He was also puzzled: what is "walk-on"? Since then, we shared a new phrase/word in engineers' daily conversation, such as "fudge factor", "ballpark number", "the whole nine yards", ... , in our weekly group meeting. Many group members and colleagues contributed to this list, which is still growing. I shared this dictionary with my two daughters, one of them is an engineering student. To my surprise, they also do not know 2x4 and walk-on. While working at the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office (AMNPO), I captured many phrases for this dictionary as the lead in our bi-weekly Interagency Working Team (IWT) meetings. One of my current colleagues in Washington DC saw this list and encouraged us to post this list, especially for new engineers coming to the US. Here we go - enjoy our engineering dictionary: