Definition of an Engineer 26

[Ashereng]

I recently brought my little ones to my office, to see where I work.

They have only seen me "colour" my drawing, and working on my computer at home, and seem to think that engineering consists of:
1) drinking a lot of coffee (yes, I am cutting back)
2) colouring (I do a lot of back checking and review)
3) surfing the web (I do a lot of design and sizing on my computer)

However, this descripton aside, how would you describe/define engineering to a group of Grade 10s? I don't mean the specific type of engineers, like a piping engineer works on a project to bring oil from Alaska to Texas, but more generic

What does an "engineer" do?

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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[PSE]

If you can formulate and test a hypothesis, you are a scientist.

If you can figure out a potential application you are a designer/inventor.

If you can do the above and build it. You are an engineer.

Regards,

 

[PBroad]

Can anyone beat "an engineer is someone who will go through any amount of effort to avoid unnecessary work"?

 

[drvmemad]

Engineers use scientific principle to create things with the purpose of solving a problem.

 

[csd72]

Engineering:

The application of science to solve problems or design projects to be safe and efficient.

A scientist discovers the facts

An engineer knows how to use these facts.

 

[SnTMan]

Well, I'd just like to point out again, that engineering has always been, and always will be, done regardless of the state of the science. Use the science if it exists, if not, the problem has to be solved by other means.

Regards,

Mike

 

[josephv]

Good point SnTMan.

The ancient Romans used Arc Bridges even before they understood about stress distribution and solid mechanics.

 

[SnTMan]

Right, and the use of metals far pre-dated that science.

Like, they had BRONZE in the BRONZE AGE

Regards,

Mike

 

[whyun]

Can people who do not understand the engineering principles but are able to build things that work be considered engineers?

Each living organism can be considered a very complex engineered system and no "engineer" was involved in their creation. Are ants, bees and beavers considered engineers for structures they build?

Definition of engineer, in my opinion, should be restricted to humans (or beings more intelligent than humans) who understand fully or partially the principles involved in the stuff they build. Also, in my opinion, stuff they build do not necessarily have to work all the time.

 

[SnTMan]

"Also, in my opinion, stuff they build do not necessarily have to work all the time."

Boy am I glad to hear that! I think most of us would agree.

Or, to borrow a quote (source unknown), "Sucess is great, but you don't LEARN anything from it."

 

[0707]

Some Einstein quotes for this thread


“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere”

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

“Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to” characterize our age

Cheers

luis

 

[csd72]

SnTman,

I completely disagree with you. Those that used arches were doing it by trial and error - that is not engineering.

There should be a scientific basis to everthing we do, even if it is just in the way we prove it works.

 

[SnTMan]

csd72, we're going to have to agree to (partially) disagree.

As I said, if the science exists, use it. It will always, when available, point us in the right direction and REDUCE, but not necessarily eliminate trial and error.

If it exists.

Regards,

Mike

 

[GregLocock]

"I completely disagree with you. Those that used arches were doing it by trial and error - that is not engineering.

There should be a scientific basis to everthing we do, even if it is just in the way we prove it works."

Hmm. I got recalibrated on this, several times over.

Firstly, da Vinci invented useful stuff that he couldn't analyse.

Secondly, engineers built many aqueducts, witout being able to calculate an arch.

And finally

every day engineers spend thousands of CPU seconds calculating the performance of vehicles, based on empirical descriptions of tire performance.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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[Tomfh]

So true Greg.

It's silly to pretend everything engineers do comes from scientific theory.

Most of the time we do what we know works based upon experience.

 

[aardvarkdw]

More to the point, isn't scientific theory just that, THEORY? Most of our "science" is just stuff that we have learned through "trial and error" and seems to work 99.9999% of the time. Until we find an exception and through it all out and come up with a new theory...

David

 

[SnTMan]

Phlogiston

 

[michfan]

Quote..."I completely disagree with you. Those that used arches were doing it by trial and error - that is not engineering."



Actually, I think some of you are not giving credit where it is definitely due.

Just because their drawings and calculations may not have survived the centuries (no weekly tape backups for their work?) I don't believe for a moment that it was pure luck that had the ancient engineers creating feats of engineering--some that have yet to be duplicated today.

For example, do a little reading on the Pantheon, built in 100 A.D. It was the largest dome on the planet for more than 1300 years...and it used portland cement in the concrete. You don't think there were engineered drawings for that?

Or the pyramids, where a piece of paper won't fit between the cracks of the stones, most of which are in the 1-ton+ range and we can't build like that today, even given our computer power. The tunnels that run through them, which meet perfectly with each other deep inside - these were planned and engineered, not just haphazardly put together with a lucky outcome.

And the use of ceramic pipe to carry water, the asphalt & lead roof on which the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built, etc? So much survived to this day, and now it is our "engineering" that is causing its decay...think of the Sphinx, which is crumbling from air pollution?

The technology that existed then isn't substandard to that available now, it's just different. Before calulators, we used slide rules with great accuracy. Before autocad, we used drafting methods such as bisecting an angle. How many engineers graduating this year have the ability to draw a two-point perspective? Probably very few. I'm not that old (really...) but I learned all of that in high school. Now they just turn students loose on a cad machine - is that progress?

How much of our current "engineering" will survive 500 years from now, and what will future engineers think of our efforts? Will they laugh and say we weren't engineers because we weren't using the alien technology that they have in the future? Are we that hypocritical to think that just because we now have computers to do our calculations that our work is superior to that of 2,000 years ago?

Because the crumbling bridges and poor roads in Michigan remind me daily that we have a long way to go...


Here is a thread with a lot of interesting comments:

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=131623&page=2

 

[whyun]

There was an elective course in my undergraduate days for the letters and science folks, exact course title escapes me but we called it physics without math. We (the engineering students) joked about a non-existent course called math without numbers and concluded that it would be a very difficult course.

Science and math are big components of engineering today and has been for at least few hundred years but I consider engineers, in a more general sense, as people who can define a need then make attempts to satisfy that need. Even the ones who fail are engineers too.

I've been in structural engineering (so far) so my opinions may be a bit biased but engineers not only know how to solve problems but more essentially know how to define the problem. For most structural applications, it takes me three to five times more in defining the parameters than to solve the problem.

 

[josephv]

Hi michfan,

Very good points, and thank you for that link. Greg Locock wrote something very interesting in that link:

"Gaudi designed his cathedral by hanging appropriate weights from an overhead framework. The threads that were used to suspend the weights gave the line of action of the forces, so should form the centre of each column. It is not inconceivable that the Romans, or some Gothic cathedral masons, used a similar technique."

I saw Gaudi's system of weights in Barcelona it was very interesting, and I agree with Greg, that it is possible that the ancient Romans (or for that matter the ancient Egyptians, Mayas and Incas) used similar methods.

 

[GregLocock]

You might want to check out Galileo's attempt to calculate how a cantilever works.

Pretty simple case - no?

He couldn't. He came up with the wrong answer. I think it was worked out correctly in the 17th or 18th century, and at a guess by Euler.

Cheers

Greg Locock

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