"Strong, invincible arguments"? Tidal models as management instruments in twentieth-century Dutch coastal engineering

One of the striking achievements of twentieth-century engineering was the development and use of mathematical models as design tools. Thanks to these tools, engineers could predict the effects of different design choices before actually building expensive prototypes or making premature decisions. The proof of the pudding might thus be had without the actual eating. Such modeling proved useful wherever engineers were facing complex challenges and high stakes.