Greatest Achievement in Engineering 8

[zdas04]

There was recently a thread in another forum from a student asking for opinions on "What is the Greatest Achievement in Engineering" of all time. The thread in that forum violated several of eng-tips rules and was inappropriate. But it got me thinking what really was the greatest engineering achievement of all time? Was it one of the early efforts of developing the wheel or the lever? Was it the U.S. space program that spun off so many wonderful new technologies? Was it the computer? Was it the aqueduct's of Rome?

What is your perspective on the greatest achievement in engineering of all time? All answers must be justified and defended there is no "right" answer, but I hope there will be many "wrong" answers.

David

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Maui : Personally, I don't think the definition of "engineering accomplishment" should extend to trial and error approaches, such as the development of Edison's electric lamp filament, and the appearance of living cells. Of course, that assumes that one accepts that the appearance of living cells at least on Earth was a random chance event, of which I am not totally convinced, even though I am a confirmed non-theist.

 

[JAE]

EnglishMuffin - I would agree with you. In fact, I thought of two responses to 25362. First, the term beneficial is a subjective term in that what is beneficial to one person may be a detraction for another. Hitler's panzers were beneficial to the Nazis. They were not for the French and Belgians.

Second, I agree that the A-bomb is a topic that many many people jump to unfounded conclusions based on a lack of thinking. Yes, it is a horrible weapon but you can argue with facts that it has saved lives.

 

[jmw]

The atom bomb just illustrates again that there is a time when some things are inevitable. As we know, the race for the atom bomb was only narrowly won by the allies. ANd both sides had jet fighters at the end (I liked the ME262a, a great looking aircraft then and now)

Developing the atom bomb in the 15th century would be astounding, in the 20th century, less so.

The arguments put forward that we should consider something that is a great leap of inspiration and not born out of its times means we are looking for something anachronistic. A contender for this might be Leonardo Da Vinci, (who else?) some of whose designs seem to satsify this criteria (there are some who have suggested he might have been a time traveller!) but taken by todays standards, well what did he invent that we could consider great in its own right?

Frankly, this is going to be a "no clear winner" we are going to be setting ourselves a target for something that doesn't exist.

Some people are going to object to any approach we make to defining the terms of reference for this choice. I guess that means we should all just put forward our favourite inventions, the reasons why and accept that it won't be the worlds greatest invention. Otherwise we will have more "greatest inventions" than World Boxing Championship titles.

So is say, put up your favourites, say why and we can all hope that we can learn something.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

Eng-Tips: Pro bono publico, by engineers, for engineers.

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[EnglishMuffin]

I wondered when somebody would mention Leonardo da Vinci. Like Edison, he was a self taught and incredibly brilliant and prolific inventor. But neither of them impress me as outstanding engineers. I think Tesla (Edison's employee) was a superior engineer, and in the case of da Vinci there is no convincing record that many of his inventions were ever made and debugged. Today, he would probably be one of those annoying people who have hundreds of patents and make money from intellectual property disputes.

 

[25362]

Let us remember what two giants said:

Henri Poincare (1854-1912): "Science is built of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955): "Science can only state what is, not what should be."

 

[EnglishMuffin]

The two remarks are to some extent contradictory, since it appears that Einstein is saying that all science can do is state the facts, whereas Poincare seems to be saying that science is more than that.
The trouble is that the architecture of Poincare's "house" keeps changing, as science goes through paradigm shifts occasionally. About the only thing you can be sure of at any time are the equations of physics, (insofar as they have been verified) rather than their interpretation. For example, you can adopt either "Lorentzian" or "Einsteinian" relativity and get the same results - at least in regard to the experiments that have been carried out to date.
And Einstein, whose name by some strange coincidence translates into English as "one stone", was as guilty as anyone of stating what he thought science "should be". On making his famous remark that "God does not play dice", one famous physicist (I forget which) told him to stop telling God what to do.
Actually, I have been reading a couple of books recently about Lorentz, Poincare, Einstein et al :
"Einstein the incorrigible plagiarist"
and
"Anticipations of Einstein in the general theory of relativity" (both by C.J. Bjerknes).
They make very interesting reading.

 

[jmw]

Da Vinci's designs have proven iresistable to a certain type of TV show and so many of them have been lavishly recreated. Many appear to work. Some appear to have been "interpreted" and made to work.

The point about Da Vinci is the same as for Babage (whose diference engines have been built, were huely expensive, but do work... no imaginative interpretations, the Science Museum in London paid the bills.)is that they are actually great examples of poor engineering.

What is a good engineering design:
(a) one that will do the job for which they are intended
(b) one can be manufactured
(c) one will be saleable

As i think has been said, engineers are practical folk. Time wasting doesn't figure high in the attributes of a good engineer.

So we might not be able to knock the inventiveness, but as an excercise in futility, many stand the test of time.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

Eng-Tips: Pro bono publico, by engineers, for engineers.

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

 

[JAE]

In the above quotes I see Poincare as dealing with the efficiency and good stewardship of engineering, while Einstein is launching into ethics. Two totally different subjects.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

JAE: You see Poincare as dealing with engineering ?? Regarding what Einstein's quote actually means, it seems unclear and it would help to know the context. Perhaps someone could enlighten us.

 

[IRstuff]

I don't see any contradictions with those two quotes.

Einstein was a scientist. His "what is" would have included general and special relativity, which certainly encompassed more than just "facts."

TTFN

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Well, if you take "what is" to be equivalent to "facts", I see a very big contradiction. But these sorts of quotes are always ambiguous - it's difficult to say what they mean out of context, or even in context sometimes. I also think quite a bit of science today does in fact amount to "wishful thinking", and often consists of what a number of leading lights think it "should be". A number of inconvenient facts which don't fit into the current paradigm (which I interpret as Poincares "house"), are simply ignored. Of course, this has happened before in earlier times, but the nature of science is such that eventually there is a paradigm shift and it self-corrects.

 

[IRstuff]

That's why some logic must be applied.

Einstein was a scientist and as such would not have considered science to be only about "facts".

What Einstein did object to was the concept of God playing dice in quantum physics, wherein the concept of what might be is a cornerstone of quantum behavior.

TTFN

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Well, perhaps we should leave the last word to Nietzsche, who said "There are no facts, only interpretations".

 

[jmw]

Before we get to Wittgenstein or Goethe, I'd like to say that anyone reading these threads will now understand why some engineering meetings go on for so long.

We agreed the project, split it into two and now we're discussing the metrics. You've just gotta have metrics.

Once we've agreed the metrics we can take a break for coffee.
Then we can start to look at possible sollutions.

However, if it takes one man a year to build a wall, how long does it take 10 men?
This is a meeting of over 1600 engineers so I'm going to send out for a mega-grande and tell them to keep it coming.

(PS the wall building question ain't that simple. I tried this argument on our chief engineer to see if he would get some contractors in or contract some of the work out. He didn't budge. He said it was a linear development.)


JMW

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[PSE]

How many threads have been started on just trying to define engineering? Some of them still have posts being added. If you consider discovery part of the engineering process (I do), you are also (in part) a scientist. The ability to take it to the next level and make it practical for use involves engineering. Hence my suggestion in my first post, the ability to create fire. There are arguably many other key creations. We speak of the stone, bronze, iron, and nuclear ages. The wheel, flight, the semi-conductor, the laser, genetics, the lists can go on and on.

Regards

 

[zdas04]

PSE,
Maybe you've hit on the essence. What caused the transition from the bronze age to the iron age? Was it one key revolutionary engineering development? Was it a group of developments? The change from the nuclear age to the information age seems to be pretty clear that it was one big step (we can argue about exactly which one was the big step) and go-zillions of smaller (but still major) steps.

That is what I was looking for - the epoch changing developments.

David

 

[David]

"The epoch changing developments."

To apply numbers to this question would seem a good idea. The first number would be the IMPACT (I) of the achievement and the second number the REVERBERATION (R). Apply them on a 1-10 scale with 10 being the highest. Add the two together and you have a way to QUANTIFY the accomplishments.

Define impact on the achievement itself. Define reverberation on how many OTHER people were influenced in their thinking to create/engineer other things.

For instance:

Pyramids 7(I) + 2(R) = 9
Fire 1(I) + 10(R) = 11
Wright Brothers 6(I) + 6(R) = 12

Anyone else care to monetize their suggested greatest engineering accomplishment?

Dave

 

[Focht3]

Roman Aqueducts
I = 10
R = 4
Quantified Value = 14



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[BJC]

Focht3
Right on, and when they used the water they had a sewer system to get rid of waste. Serwers and sanatation systems have to rank high as they have probably save more lives than any two other things combined.

 

[flamby]

Roman Aqueducts
I = 10
R = 4
Quantified Value = IR = 104 (Roman Maths) ;-)
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Why, may I ask, is there a need to separate science and engineering where they are intertwined so inseparably. If you allow that, Newton's achievement of discovering laws of motion stands tall, both in science and engineering, as the sustaining basis of all modern science & engineering.