Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying
scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to
design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes
that safely realize improvements to the lives of people.
The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the predecessor
of ABET)[1] has defined "engineering" as:
[T]he creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures,
machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly
or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their
design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as
respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.
One who practices engineering is called an engineer, and those licensed to do so
may have more formal designations such as Professional Engineer, Chartered Engineer,
Incorporated Engineer, Ingenieur or European Engineer. The broad discipline of engineering
encompasses a range of more specialized subdisciplines, each with a more specific
emphasis on certain fields of application and particular areas of technology.
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The Watt steam engine, a major driver in the Industrial Revolution
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History
The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental
inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent
with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles
to develop useful tools and objects.
The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the
word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325, when an engine’er (literally, one
who operates an engine) originally referred to “a constructor of military engines.
In this context, now obsolete, an “engine” referred to a military machine, i.e.,
a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). Notable exceptions
of the obsolete usage which have survived to the present day are military engineering
corps, e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The word “engine” itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin
ingenium (c. 1250), meaning “innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever
invention.
Later, as the design of civilian structures such as bridges and buildings matured
as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering[4] entered the lexicon as
a way to distinguish between those specializing in the construction of such non-military
projects and those involved in the older discipline of military engineering.
Ancient era
The Pharos of Alexandria, the pyramids in Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
the Acropolis and the Parthenon in Greece, the Roman aqueducts, Via Appia and the
Colosseum, Teotihuacán and the cities and pyramids of the Mayan, Inca and Aztec
Empires, the Great Wall of China, among many others, stand as a testament to the
ingenuity and skill of the ancient civil and military engineers.
The earliest civil engineer known by name is Imhotep. As one of the officials of
the Pharaoh, Djosèr, he probably designed and supervised the construction of the
Pyramid of Djoser (the Step Pyramid) at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630-2611 BC. He
may also have been responsible for the first known use of columns in architecture[citation
needed].
Ancient Greece developed machines in both the civilian and military domains. The
Antikythera mechanism, the first known mechanical computer,[8][9] and the mechanical
inventions of Archimedes are examples of early mechanical engineering. Some of Archimedes'
inventions as well as the Antikythera mechanism required sophisticated knowledge
of differential gearing or epicyclic gearing, two key principles in machine theory
that helped design the gear trains of the Industrial revolution, and are still widely
used today in diverse fields such as robotics and automotive engineering.
Chinese, Greek and Roman armies employed complex military machines and inventions
such as artillery which was developed by the Greeks around the 4th century B.C.,[11]
the trireme, the ballista and the catapult. In the Middle Ages, the Trebuchet was
developed.
Renaissance era
The first electrical engineer is considered to be William Gilbert, with his 1600
publication of De Magnete, who was the originator of the term "electricity".
The first steam engine was built in 1698 by mechanical engineer Thomas Savery.[13]
The development of this device gave rise to the industrial revolution in the coming
decades, allowing for the beginnings of mass production.
With the rise of engineering as a profession in the eighteenth century, the term
became more narrowly applied to fields in which mathematics and science were applied
to these ends. Similarly, in addition to military and civil engineering the fields
then known as the mechanic arts became incorporated into engineering.
Modern era
Electrical engineering can trace its origins in the experiments of Alessandro Volta
in the 1800s, the experiments of Michael Faraday, Georg Ohm and others and the invention
of the electric motor in 1872. The work of James Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz in the
late 19th century gave rise to the field of Electronics. The later inventions of
the vacuum tube and the transistor further accelerated the development of electronics
to such an extent that electrical and electronics engineers currently outnumber
their colleagues of any other Engineering specialty.
The inventions of Thomas Savery and the Scottish engineer James Watt gave rise to
modern Mechanical Engineering. The development of specialized machines and their
maintenance tools during the industrial revolution led to the rapid growth of Mechanical
Engineering both in its birthplace Britain and abroad.
Chemical Engineering, like its counterpart Mechanical Engineering, developed in
the nineteenth century during the Industrial Revolution.[4] Industrial scale manufacturing
demanded new materials and new processes and by 1880 the need for large scale production
of chemicals was such that a new industry was created, dedicated to the development
and large scale manufacturing of chemicals in new industrial plants.[4] The role
of the chemical engineer was the design of these chemical plants and processes.
Aeronautical Engineering deals with aircraft design while Aerospace Engineering
is a more modern term that expands the reach envelope of the discipline by including
spacecraft design.[14] Its origins can be traced back to the aviation pioneers around
the turn of the century from the 19th century to the 20th although the work of Sir
George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th
century. Early knowledge of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with
some concepts and skills imported from other branches of engineering.
The first PhD in engineering (technically, applied science and engineering) awarded
in the United States went to Willard Gibbs at Yale University in 1863; it was also
the second PhD awarded in science in the U.S.
Only a decade after the successful flights by the Wright brothers, there was extensive
development of aeronautical engineering through development of military aircraft
that were used in World War I . Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background
science continued by combining theoretical physics with experiments.
In 1990, with the rise of computer technology, the first search engine was built
by computer engineer Alan Emtage.
Main branches of engineering
Engineering, much like other science, is a broad discipline which is often broken
down into several sub-disciplines. These disciplines concern themselves with differing
areas of engineering work. Although initially an engineer will usually be trained
in a specific discipline, throughout an engineer's career the engineer may become
multi-disciplined, having worked in several of the outlined areas. Engineering is
often characterized as having four main branches:
• Chemical engineering – The exploitation of both engineering and chemical principles
in order to carry out large scale chemical process.
• Civil engineering – The design and construction of public and private works, such
as infrastructure (airports, roads, railways, water supply and treatment etc.),
bridges, dams, and buildings.
• Electrical engineering – a very broad area that may encompass the design and study
of various electrical and electronic systems, such as electrical circuits, generators,
motors, electromagnetic/electromechanical devices, electronic devices, electronic
circuits, optical fibers, optoelectronic devices, computer systems, telecommunications
and electronics.
• Mechanical engineering – The design of physical or mechanical systems, such as
power and energy systems, aerospace/aircraft products, weapon systems, transportation
products engines, compressors, powertrains, kinematic chains, vacuum technology,
and vibration isolation equipment.
Beyond these four, sources vary on other main branches. Historically, naval engineering
and mining engineering were major branches. Modern fields sometimes included as
major branches include aerospace, architectural, biomedical,[19] industrial, materials
science[20] and nuclear engineering.
New specialties sometimes combine with the traditional fields and form new branches.
A new or emerging area of application will commonly be defined temporarily as a
permutation or subset of existing disciplines; there is often gray area as to when
a given sub-field becomes large and/or prominent enough to warrant classification
as a new "branch." One key indicator of such emergence is when major universities
start establishing departments and programs in the new field.
For each of these fields there exists considerable overlap, especially in the areas
of the application of sciences to their disciplines such as physics, chemistry and
mathematics.
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