History of engineering

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

industrial revolution
, underscores the importance of engineering in modern history. This model is on display at the main building of the ETSII in Madrid, Spain

The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the

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."[1] In this context, now obsolete, an "engine" referred to a military machine, i. e., a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). 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."[2]

Later, as the design of civilian structures such as bridges and buildings matured as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering[3] 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 (the original meaning of the word "engineering," now largely obsolete, with notable exceptions that have survived to the present day such as military engineering corps, e. g., the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers).

Ancient era

The

Aztec Empires, and 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 six classic

Neo-Assyrian period (911-609) BC.[9] The Egyptian pyramids were built using three of the six simple machines, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the lever, to create structures like the Great Pyramid of Giza.[12]

The earliest architect known by name is

Step Pyramid) at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630-2611 BC.[13] He may also have been responsible for the first known use of columns in architecture.[14]

Meroitic period.[19][20][21][22]

The earliest practical

Persian Empire, in what are now Iraq and Iran, by the early 4th century BC.[23]

Ancient Greece developed machines both in the civilian and military domains. The Antikythera mechanism, an early known model of a mechanical analog computer, and the mechanical inventions of Archimedes, are examples of Greek 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.[24]

Chinese and Roman armies employed complex military machines including the

seismoscope for detecting earthquakes, which was not invented anywhere else in the world until 1,100 years later.[25]

Huan Tan's Xinlun is the earliest text to describe the trip hammer device powered by hydraulics (i.e., a waterwheel), which was used to pound and decorticate grain.[26]

Middle Ages

Byzantine Empire

Byzantines translated and preserved countless Greek manuscripts and also made contributions to engineering in the early medieval world. Anthemius of Tralles, and Isidore of Miletus, were responsible for the architecture of the Hagia Sophia church in 532-537 CE.[27]

The Greek fire, invented by Callinicus of Heliopolis was a weapon used by the Byzantines. It consisted of flammable substances such as petroleum, naphtha, quicklime, sulphur, resin and potassium nitrate.[28]

Islamic Golden Age

Islamic Golden Age witnessed advances of engineering knowledge, after translate the works of Greek, Persian, Roman, and Indian scholars.

The earliest practical

Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in Ottoman Egypt.[33][34]

The

cotton industry. The spinning wheel was also a precursor to the spinning jenny, which was a key development during the early Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.[37]

After translating the works of

castle clock, a hydropowered mechanical astronomical clock invented by Al-Jazari, was the first programmable analog computer.[41][42][43]

Al-Jazari also developed and made innovations to segmental gears, mechanical controls, escapement
mechanisms, clocks, robotics, and protocols for designing and manufacturing methods.

European Renaissance

The first fully-functioning

industrial revolution in the coming decades, allowing for the beginnings of mass production
.

With the rise of engineering as a

mechanic arts
became incorporated into engineering.

The following images are samples from a deck of cards illustrating engineering instruments in England in 1702. They illustrate a range of engineering specializations, that would eventually become known as civil engineering, mechanical engineering, geodesy and geomatics, and so on.

Each card includes a caption explaining the purpose of the instrument:

  • Four of hearts: Sea quadrant
    Four of hearts: Sea quadrant
  • Nine of diamonds: Dyals (dials)
    Nine of diamonds: Dyals (dials)
  • Six of diamonds: Circumferentor
    Six of diamonds: Circumferentor
  • Eight of diamonds: the Compass
    Eight of diamonds: the Compass
  • King of spades: Spheres
    King of spades: Spheres
  • Knave of hearts: Surveying wheel and chains
    Knave of hearts: Surveying wheel and chains
  • Knave of spades: Leavell
    Knave of spades: Leavell
  • One of diamonds: Mathematical instruments
    One of diamonds: Mathematical instruments
  • Queen of diamonds: Projections of the sphere
    Queen of diamonds: Projections of the sphere
  • Queen of spades: Astronomical quadrant
    Queen of spades: Astronomical quadrant
  • Three of diamonds: Gauger (gauges)
    Three of diamonds: Gauger (gauges)
  • Two of clubs: Theodolet and semi-circle
    Two of clubs: Theodolet and semi-circle

Modern era

The inventions of Thomas Savery and the Scottish engineer

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.[3]

The discipline of

electric telegraph network and the first electrical engineering institutions to support the new discipline were founded in the UK and US. Although it is impossible to precisely pinpoint a first electrical engineer, Francis Ronalds stands ahead of the field, who created the first working electric telegraph system in 1816 and documented his vision of how the world could be transformed by electricity.[45][46]

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.[3]

Chemical Engineering, like its counterpart Mechanical Engineering, developed in the 19th century during the Industrial Revolution.[3] 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.[3] The role of the chemical engineer was the design of these chemical plants and processes.[3]

Aeronautical Engineering deals with

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.[48] Only a decade after the successful flights by the Wright brothers, the 1920s saw extensive development of aeronautical engineering through development of World War I military aircraft. Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background science continued by combining theoretical physics
with experiments.

The first

Willard Gibbs at Yale University in 1863; it was also the second PhD awarded in science in the U.S.[49]

In 1990, with the rise of

computer engineer Alan Emtage
.

See also

References

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
  2. ^ Origin: 1250–1300; ME engin < AF esp. mental power, hence a clever invention, equiv. to in- + -genium, equiv. to gen- begetting; Source: Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Engineers' Council for Professional Development definition on Encyclopædia Britannica (Includes Britannica article on Engineering)
  4. ISBN 9781575060422
    .
  5. ^ D.T. Potts (2012). A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. p. 285.
  6. ^
    ISBN 9789048190911
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  7. ISBN 9780486264851
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  8. ISBN 9781404205604
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  9. ^
    ISBN 9781575060422
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  10. ISBN 9780195113747
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  11. ISBN 0-8225-2994-7
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  12. ISBN 0-8225-2996-3
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  13. ISBN 9781134563883
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  14. ISBN 978-0195122213
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  15. ISBN 9780435948054
    . Retrieved 2012-06-19 – via Books.google.com.
  16. ^ Fritz Hintze, Kush XI; pp.222-224.
  17. ^ "Siege warfare in ancient Egypt". Tour Egypt. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  18. ISBN 978-0-313-32501-4
    .
  19. ISSN 0093-4690
    .
  20. ISBN 9780521867467
    – via Google Books.
  21. ISBN 9780203482766
    – via Google Books.
  22. doi:10.1080/00934690.2018.1479085
    .
  23. ISBN 9789401714167
    .
  24. ^ Wright, M T. (2005). "Epicyclic Gearing and the Antikythera Mechanism, part 2". Antiquarian Horology. 29 (1 (September 2005)): 54–60.
  25. ^ People's Daily Online (June 13, 2005). China resurrects world's earliest seismograph. Retrieved on 2005-06-13.
  26. ^ Needham, Joseph (1986), Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 4: Physics and Physical Technology, Pt. II: Mechanical Engineering, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 392
  27. ^ "10 Inventions You Should Know That Came from the Byzantine Empire". 7 December 2021.
  28. ^ "Greek Fire".
  29. ISBN 0-521-42239-6
    .
  30. ISBN 90-04-14649-0
  31. ISBN 0-442-26134-9
    .
  32. ISBN 978-981-4304-13-9
    .
  33. Ahmad Y Hassan (1976), Taqi al-Din and Arabic Mechanical Engineering, pp. 34-5, Institute for the History of Arabic Science, University of Aleppo
    .
  34. Ahmad Y. Hassan (1976), Taqi al-Din and Arabic Mechanical Engineering, p. 34-35, Institute for the History of Arabic Science, University of Aleppo
  35. ISBN 9780801873942
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  36. ^ Pacey, Arnold (1991) [1990]. Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand-Year History (First MIT Press paperback ed.). Cambridge MA: The MIT Press. pp. 23–24.
  37. ISBN 9789004251793
    . The spinning jenny was basically an adaptation of its precursor the spinning wheel
  38. doi:10.1016/S0094-114X(01)00005-2
    .
  39. ISSN 1355-7718
    .
  40. ^ Professor Noel Sharkey, A 13th Century Programmable Robot (Archive), University of Sheffield.
  41. ^ "Episode 11: Ancient Robots", Ancient Discoveries, History Channel, retrieved 2008-09-06[dead link]
  42. ISBN 0-292-78149-0
  43. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering
    )
  44. ^ "The Invention and Impact of the Steam Engine". study.com. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  45. ISBN 978-1-78326-917-4
    .
  46. S2CID 20662894
    .
  47. ^ Imperial College London England: Studying engineering at Imperial: Engineering courses are offered in five main branches of engineering: aeronautical, chemical, civil, electrical and mechanical. There are also courses in computing science, software engineering, information systems engineering, materials science and engineering, mining engineering and petroleum engineering.
  48. ^ Van Every, Kermit E. (1986). "Aeronautical engineering". Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 1. Grolier Incorporated. p. 226.
  49. ISBN 1-881987-11-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )

Further reading

  • Bix, Amy Sue. Girls Coming to Tech!: A History of American Engineering Education for Women (MIT Press, 2014)
  • Hill, Donald. A history of engineering in classical and medieval times (Routledge, 2013), on Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs
  • Landels, John G. Engineering in the Ancient World (University of California Press, 2000, rev. ed.)
    ISBN 978-0-520-22782-8
  • Lawton, Brian, ed. The Early History of Mechanical Engineering - Vol. 1 (2004) online; vol 2 (2004) online
  • Rae, John and Rudi Volti. The Engineer in History (2001) online
  • Rhodes, Edward, ed. Engineering America: The Rise of the American Professional Class, 1838–1920 (Washington: Westphalia Press, 2014) 142 pp.
  • Smith, Edgar C. A short history of naval and marine engineering (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
  • Usher, Abbott Payson. A History of Mechanical Invention (2nd ed. 1954), 450 pp. online review

External links

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