Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer

Professor Celso was also remarkable for his broad general knowledge. He seemed to have a deep understanding of any subject he addressed or was asked about. What an ability to express himself in a cultured yet simple manner. He became unforgettable because of a problem he gave on a test, one whose answer is still not entirely known today, since everything keeps changing. It was worthwhile as a mental exercise and for the world of potential problems and the complexity of seem

Cities are hostage to their water system. If any of the urban infrastructure systems is lacking, chaos sets in. If electricity is lacking, the first unbearable effect that will be noticed is the lack of water: There will be no solution. If water is lacking, even with electricity, it will be unbearable to live in urban areas. There must be in Brazil (2012) more than 10,000 water supply systems. This number does not stop increasing. In each of them, water is sought farther and

Leme beach coming back from the water from the sea sinuous walk golden body casual charm spreads the towel stretches out. Game played. We peek, and keep thinking about the silly things that keep us from saying what we feel to the wet body lying beside me on Leme beach Fragment (poetic outbursts) Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # written between 1

Today my mobile phone froze and no one could figure out what to do. Until someone completely turned off the device, counted to 20 (slowly), with great discussions about that time interval, and, when turning it back on, the device came back as good as new. It is the so-called “Portuguese” method: turn-it-off-and-on-again. A friend of ours, who was there, Portuguese, upon realizing that we called the method by his gentilic, came out with this: _ yes, of course, it is simple an

Antonio Vicente era menos sofisticado. Perceptiblemente quería transmitir lo que había aprendido independientemente de glorias. Si fuera en el anonimato, estaba bien. Baja vanidad. Un profesor sencillo y brillante, de un tema que, aunque frecuente en novelas, dramas, teatro, reportajes y cine, es, bajo muchos aspectos, desconocido. Incluso porque es notoriamente frecuente que, cuando la historia que le da origen no coincide con el “glamour” y/o el sesgo interpretativo que el

The “late” Montreal Engenharia (1955-2005, 100% Brazilian, reaching 25,000 employees), was a true graduate school for engineers, architects, economists, lawyers and friendships (and a few rare enmities too, because it would be a lie to maintain the opposite in any environment). In 1977-78, Montreal’s Projects Division (MONEP) came to incorporate Internacional de Engenharia (IECo, a division of Morrison-Knudsen, from the USA), although IECo was larger than MONEP. It came to b

It must have been around 1989 or 1990 and he decided to spend an extended weekend at an inn at the beginning of the climb, already inside Itatiaia National Park, with his then companion. Arriving there, to his surprise, Evo Brito was also staying there, with his wife and other family members. Evo was a former professor who brought him good memories. They quickly got into the group and he learned that part of the Brito family had arranged a small gathering, occupying almost t

It was around 2008 and, for professional reasons, he needed to buy a new car, with four-wheel drive, low-range gear and, preferably, a diesel engine, because of the torque at low revs. After several analyses, engineer-style, with a decision matrix, generating the price/power and weight/power ratios, besides the test drives, the choice fell on a “Sorento” model from the Korean KIA. With the dealership on Rua da Passagem and the workshop on Rua Assunção, both in Botafogo, in R

Back in 1981/1982, through Internacional de Engenharia (IESA), I coordinated a work called Projeto Rio and, immediately afterward, a “Guanabara Bay Depollution Program - PDBG”. It was the first PDBG, when little or nothing was yet said about it. The idea of the subject excited some people and led to a meeting in the BNH building (Banco Nacional da Habitação, today incorporated into CEF), on the corner of Av. R. Paraguai with Av. R. Chile, in downtown Rio. Sérgio Franklin

It was the late 1980s, the marriage was not going well, both in the 40-to-50 age range, both no longer respecting each other as they should, but with three children, the youngest still 3 years old, they kept going, somewhat without knowing what to do. It was evident that something was going to happen or was already happening. Whoever has been through this understands. At a certain point, he realized that something was real: she had stopped complaining about everything, somet

We are in early April 2020, about 15 days into official quarantine (technically in horizontal social distancing – everyone at home). This is because we are living through a global pandemic caused by a virus named SARS-CoV-2 (coronavirus detected in China in late 2019). They say it will become historically as famous as the pandemic that occurred in 1918, that is, 102 years ago, which became known as the “Spanish flu”. With the relatively recent advent of the internet, the mon

In Rio de Janeiro, at the turn of the year from 1965 to 1966, the “entrance exam” for admission to the 3 public engineering schools: UFRJ (the Federal one, on “Ilha do Fundão”), UFF (the Fluminense Federal one, in Niterói) and UEG (State, today UERJ, in Maracanã), until then held individually by each university, was unified (perhaps that was the beginning of CESGRANRIO). It was to be in early January but, due to heavy rains, floods and landslides that struck the then State of

It was 2023 and they had been wanting to install a steel cable, parallel to those of the “Sugarloaf cable cars”, along which some bored little children of mommy-and-daddy would rehearse their suicides, hanging from a pulley (the so-called “zipline”), competing with other nonsense such as jumping off bridges tied by elastic bands around the ankles, riding roller coasters, getting tattoos, in short, things one cannot go back on, almost everyone regrets, or does not confess, or

In 1998 we were hired to design the water distribution system for the neighborhood of Palanca, in Luanda. Palanca was a true city-slum, with 3,000 ha and a population then on the order of 500,000 inhabitants, almost all recently settled there, coming from the countryside and displaced by the then civil war; At the time, a younger colleague was supposed to go but, at the last minute, refused to go to a place technically at war. I had to go. Accompanying me as client was the e

In 1967, Rio de Janeiro was still, in fact, the capital of Brazil, although by law Brasília had already been so since 1960. The federation was restructuring itself and the BC - Central Bank of Brazil had recently been created, replacing the then SUMOC - Superintendency of Currency and Credit (which included the Mint). The first headquarters of the BC was the building at Av. Pres. Vargas 84, on the north corner with Rua 1º de Março, in downtown Rio (Candelária), where, among

1969 (at age 21) The Canary Islands are an archipelago made up of about 7 volcanic islands. The island closest to Africa is Fuerteventura and it is about 100 km west of southern Morocco, on the African continent. There are more than 7 islands, but with people living on them I think they do not exceed 7. The two main islands are Tenerife and Gran Canaria. We stopped in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a very busy and industrialized port, oil refinery, huge warehouses, much commer

1967 to 68 (from ages 20 to 21) The second episode, worthy of note, on the stretch from Salvador to Cape Verde, was when we crossed paths with the French squadron, which, apparently by chance, was also carrying out exercises there. When we detected the other squadron on the radars, the French, with much better radars, had already seen us and had already taken positions which, according to the training manuals (of “naval battle”), meant we would already have lost. It must h

At age 21 The Squadron was composed of the Light Aircraft Carrier Minas Gerais, the A11, a cruiser (again the Barroso, the C11), a frigate, two destroyers (D27 and D28? would the D stand for “destroyer”?), two corvettes and a submarine (that is what I think as I write this draft in 2020). The group left very excited because, for almost everyone, it was the first trip abroad, practically an illusion (airline tickets were very expensive). In my case, I was assigned to crew th

At ages 20-21 At the end of Nov 1967, we already reported again to the Naval School (Ilha de Villegagnon, beside Santos Dumont airport), where the officers of the Brazilian Navy are trained. It was (and is) a semi-conventional institution of higher education (semi because military), AAA university level, which prides itself on saying that it is the oldest university-level teaching institution in Brazil. It was the vacation period of the young men who studied there as boarde

At 20 In July 1967, we spent 15 days at CIAW and 15 days actually and legally embarked, in maneuvers on the high seas aboard the Brazilian naval squadron, in my case on the “Cruiser Barroso”, the rest of EFORM distributed among a frigate, two destroyers, a corvette and a submarine, almost all of them, in a certain way, second-hand vessels from the Second World War, that is, projects from the 1930s. The opposition to the government claimed that such ships were pushed on us in