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

 

[jmw]

I didn't think the question was that profound.
Yet..

Though it does seem we will be a few millenia arriving at an answer.

JMW

http://www.viscoanalyser.com

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[zdas04]

Just watch out for white rats, right?

David

 

[quark]

To me, whether engineering is science or not, seems to be a linguistic problem rather than a scientific one. We first have ideas and expressions and then languages are spoken subsequently for ease of communication. As a part of any subject gets elaborated due to research, the part becomes a separate entity and gets a new name.

Though Newton made passing references to frames of reference in his works, I don't think keeping 'm' inside the differential justifies this. Mass will never change with respect to time in any frame of reference. If we have to consider, in force equation, the variable mass then it should be partially differentiated with respect to velocity and then the entire thing to time to get acceleration(excluding light velocity).

Feynman, obviously, was the best scientist of contemporary USA(as he himself declared) but I doubt his authenticity in psychology or other subject(I don't want to be ironic by saying science). In my view, it is not good to judge any subject till it gets developed. For example, differential calculus was first used by Archimedes and because of idealogical false hoods of Plato(that approximation can never be part of math), it couldn't see the light till 18th century.

In my view, Automobile is one of the greatest inventions.

Regards,

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Well, Quark, now that you bring up Feynman, I'm not sure that it's "obvious" to everyone that he was the best - although he was for my money. But why don't I ever run into people like him in strip clubs? These "best" and "greatest" and "science versus enguneering" arguments will have no end, but Feynman himself does seem to have made a clear distinction between science and engineering. In "Lectures in Physics Vol 2", he is talking about the gaps between the iron in an electric motor rotor and stator, and says "...closing the gaps and making the thing work in the most practical way is engineering. It requires serious study of design problems, although there are no new basic principles from which the forces are obtained." It is true that he says in Vol 1 that "psychoanalysis is not a science: it is at best a medical process, and perhaps even more like witch doctoring", but he was not so dismissive of psychology in general. Feynman originally planned to be an electrical engineer, but quickly changed to physics after going to university. But it is quite clear from his writings that he always had the greatest respect for good engineers, unlike some physicists.

 

[jmw]

Maybe we should include some abstracts in our consideration.
Fenyman made good use of negative time. Historically, zero and infinity were pretty hard concepts to swallow at the time but are pretty essential to our thinking today.

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.

 

[corus]

When looking at greatest achievements in engineering it's best to look at each discipline.
In terms of mechanical engineering the automobile has to be no. 1, particularly for the versatility of the drinks holder design that allows young children to get their foot trapped.
For electronic engineering it has to be the mobile telephone, allowing the woman almost instant confirmation with her mother that she married a complete idiot.
For civil engineering it has to be the UK's Stonehenge, probably the first example of a roundabout, something the egyptians never quite got the hang of.


corus

 

[25362]

A note to quark's observation. While dealing with rockets their mass M is indeed differentiated with respect to time. Naming the fuel velocity as v_ex, from the principle of conservation of momentum -in the limit-

Mdv/dt = -v_exdM/dt​

where dM=-dm (using dm for the mass of fuel ejected)

The right hand-side expression is called by rocket engineers the thrust of the rocket, and is a measure of the force accelerating it.

Playing around with both sides of the equality, we get:
dv = -v_ex dM/M, and integrating both sides between initial and final conditions we obtain:

v_f = v_i + v_exln(M_i/M_f)​

and since M_i = M+m > M_f, this equation shows what was expected, that the speed increases as the rocket ejects fuel.

The mass ratio sets the limit for the maximum achievable (terminal) speed from fully loaded to fully empty fuel tanks.

The equation also shows that, for a given mass ratio, the terminal speed can be increased by increasing the velocity of the exhaust gases.

 

[quark]

I meant it with respect to the frames of reference with varying velocities and particularly Newton's perspective about relativity. Anyway thanks. I learned one new thing.

PS: I deliberately omitted Radioactive material from my post

Regards,

 

[IRstuff]

Most of the model rocket engines do not have constant thrust. The actual thrust curves some in all sorts of shapes:

http://www.nar.org/pdf/Estes/HALFA6.pdf

>Triangular shape

http://www.nar.org/pdf/Apogee/HALFA2.pdf

>Spike followed by constant

http://www.nar.org/pdf/Estes/HALFA3T.pdf

>BIG spike followed by constant

http://www.nar.org/pdf/Kosdon/G40.pdf

>This one actually is close to constant

links from:

http://www.thrustcurve.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?sort=class

TTFN

 

[EnglishMuffin]

I think the development of the rolling element bearing has been a very remarkable and important engineering "achievement", although it has been a very gradual development over a very long period of time. Just how important they had become by mid twentieth century was demonstrated in WWII, when the US came very close to wiping out half of German ball bearing production with the Schweinfurt raids. Although they were unsuccessful, with modern guided weapons, they would have done it and brought fighter construction to a standstill. And just how old the basic concepts are was brought to light by Mussolini, when he supported the draining of lake Nemi in the 1930's, revealing two huge Roman ships from the time of Caligula, which contained among other things some large thrust ball bearings, and some thrust taper rollers with pintle cages. How ironic it is that the museum containing these was sadly destroyed by the retreating Germans in WWII - they were more successful in destroying the archaeological remains than the Allies were in destroying their distant descendents.

 

[unclesyd]

You fellows have it all wrong.
When this thread first started I asked my wife what was the greatest thing invented or developed that she could think of. As we happened to be on the way to Wal-Mart she quickly said the shopping cart. Just I today received my latest "Invention and Technology Magazine" and there is an article on the shopping cart. “The Shopping Cart” by Curt Wohleber The invention that made “Giant Economy Size and Super Store" common words.

On the more serious side is an article called "Inventions That Really Stuck" by Jim Quinn. It talks about the current crop of 20 inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. A few you know and some not known except in their fields.
Can you link the names to the accomplishments
Luc Montagnier Cable
Edith Flanigen Aids
Harry Coover Insulin
Ray Dolby GPS
Bradford Parkinson Sewing Machine
Ivan Getting Super Glue
Charles Kelman Pulse Code Modulation
Fredrick Banting Hypertext and Internet
Charles Best Zeolites
James Collip Digital Technology
Vannevar Bush Insulin
Wallace Coulter Food Preservatives
John H Gibbon Jr Insulin
Lloyd Hall GPS
Elias Howe Sugar Production
Claude Shannon Particle Counts
Bernard Oliver Heart Lung Machine
Norbert Rillieux Sound Improvement
John Robeling Cataract Surgery

This are mostly American Inventors but everyone one in the world had been effect by their work.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Well, I suppose one could start another discussion about whether "great inventions" were necessarily "great engineering achievements". Mind, you, I'm not necessarily saying that some or most of them aren't. By the way, I think that last one should be spelled "John Roebling" (suspension bridge cable).

 

[unclesyd]

EnglishMuffin
I grant you that some inventions fall out from under the umbrella of engineering on the first pass but nearly all required engineering input to implement whether it was electrical, chemical, mechanical, or other. Most engineering accomplishments are not from a single entity, but are the results of a team, group, or a cluster from many disciplines.
You will find that the EOR standing on top of something in his engineers boots (shinny) and campaign hat smoking the Marlboro cigarette did very little of the engineering work on the work shown in the background.
They don’t take our pictures.

As you mentioned Roebling, there is little mention in literature of the people that designed and built his wire rope machines.

 

[jmw]

I don't think we can include the shopping cart, even if they ever fix the wonky wheel problem.

And maybe the possibility that they gave rise to the supermarket is another good reason.



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.

 

[25362]

EM said something en passant as "under the umbrella of engineering" and that brought to mind the umbrella (or a rain-proof parasol) as a valuable old invention...

 

[EnglishMuffin]

You are mistaken. It was not I, but unclesyd who mentioned "umbrella of engineering".

 

[unclesyd]

jmw,
I could have make your day a little better if I had reported the next article was about the development of the electrical guitar and amplifier.


I think don’t think one can say that there is one greatest achievement in engineering. Each event in the world of engineering has a different meaning or affects different people in varying degrees, some good, some bad. The engineering event’s place in the realm of things depends on one’s vantage point that point in time and subsequently how it affects one from that point foreword.

The mechanical application of Newton’s laws has had very little to benefit to my life other than allows me to be under the threat of rocket attack and getting hit by a higher velocity bullet among other bad things. Gravity for me is and will always the same and I know through empirical analysis that if I wreck at 60 mph it will be much worse than at 30 mph. Now,if I could convince my grandson to work on his bat speed Newton would come into play. He is just out of the ninth grade and doesn’t know who Newton is much less how his laws affect his baseball playing.

If I would take some of the inventions in respect to engineering from the list presented, one of the greatest achievements of engineering to me would be the engineering that went into the mass production of the different insulins available today. My father spent half his paycheck every week for insulin for 19 years until his death. I take insulin and my cost per unit is approximately 1/20, in real dollars, of his cost and with health insurance even less. Adding to my list is the Heart Lung Machine and the engineering development that went into perfecting it. It allowed me to have bypass surgery which without I would have been given a supply of Morphine and sent home to die. An interesting twist now is that engineers of several disciplines are trying to relegate the Heart Lung Machine to the sidelines by development of the Laproscopic surgical procedures.
I like The Dolby enhanced sound and have read of the amount of engineering work that was needed to bring to fruition. I will always appreciated the engineer, technician, or chemist that first stuck his fingers togather with Super Glue. When I cut my finger wood carving it is a wonderful development of a chemical process to make the glue that puts my cut back togather.
If I take Newton again in respect to GPS, granted his laws allowed the engineer the tools to development and deploy the system but it required a tremendous engineering input to be implemented in the way it is today and will continue to be improved by engineering. GPS has been a great benefit to a lot people including myself but has been terrible for the fish. When I started fishing we had a 45 Ft wooden boat which would make 5 knots take hours to get in the vicinity of a desired position using only a compass and bottom sampling for navigation. Later a 200 pound Loran set got us within a 1/4 mile circle. Now we have a 45 plastic boat with a high speed diesel, a product of untold amount of engineering, that will run 45 knots and with a GPS set (1/4 lb) that makes it possible to get within a 4 meter circle.
Add Newton to a locally developed bomb and couple it with GPS running is the better option than hiding.

Roebling’s cable allowed the development of beautiful great suspension bridges, we don’t have many in this area, but it also allowed giant high rise buildings to be built in the wrong place. Might have to pass some blame to Mr. Otis for overcoming some of Newtons work. Roebling’ s cable has contributed to marvelous feats of engineer in many areas. When I started in industry, right outside my office building was a process operating at 6250 psig and some fairly large equipment and quite impressive and somewhat worrisome. Then in less than four months later I visited Exxon in Baton Rouge and my first question was how in the world did they engineer and construct such huge equipment.

What would the price of gasoline be today if not for Zeolites. But one has to think of the engineers and all the engineering that went into those giant things to hold all of them and the engineers that figured out how to recover all the heavy crudes with all the bad stuff and transport them to these vessels.

I don’t think the engineer or their achievements have ever gotten the credit deserved even from their own peer group due to emphasis put on the bottom line by management whether it be king or CEO. With few exceptions a working engineer isn’t rewarded for their input on project other than their normal compensation. There is little or no credit for the great engineering work being done today. One point is the skyscraper where all you hear about is the architect not the engineer who came up with the development of the steel frame to support the upper levels instead of the masonry/stone support in use at the time. How about the engineer that came up with the solution to flushing a toilet on the 80th floor of the Empire State building without sucking all the water out every toilet below and destroying the pipe at the lower levels.

If a story I read is correct, Newton was deep down an Engineer. As the Royal Society was debating how many teeth a horse had by comparing it to all other similar animals Newton being a new inductee and not wise to ways of the society got up, went outside to the hitching post open the horse’s mouth and counted his teeth. Upon returning and reporting the number was nearly thrown out for being unscientific.

The vast majority of ideas, aside from the fundamental laws, don’t become great or the greatest without engineering input using all the fundemtal laws.

Engineers and Engineering are great, sometimes.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

jmw : In regard to your last anecdote, assuming it is true, it would seem to me that the Royal Society were being very unscientific. Newton's approach on the other hand was precisely what that of a scientist should be - ie carry out an experiment and then make deductions. But I don't see what such an experiment has to do with engineering, since he did not carry out the all important step of creating anything physically new from the observation, again assuming the anecdote is true. I guess this argument will go on for ever, but to me the distinction between engineering and a science in the majority of cases is obvious. It is worth noting that although the Royal Society is a scientific institution, it has numbered among its fellows a number of engineers, among them Sir Harry Ricardo, whom automotive guys will recognize as the founder of the world renowned "Ricardo's" engine consulting firm in the south of England. Reading his biography "Memories and Machines" should leave one in no doubt that an engineer is quite capable of doing science, even in the eyes of the FRS. Another engineer, however (Eric Laithwaite) who was on the verge of being inducted, was not so lucky. He gave a lecture to the FRS which they refused to publish, since it revealed his complete lack of understanding of Newtonian mechanics, and he was shunned by them for the rest of his life.

 

[unclesyd]

EnglishMuffin,
Wouldn't you agree that sometimes things it falls on the shoulders of an engineer to inform management that things are not so good, going bad, or getting worse.
As I've posted before my worst failure was I wasn't able to persuade management to shut the whole plant down due to problems we were having with some heating equipment not based on engineering but on plain common sense. The equipment shut itself and the plant down.

 

[EnglishMuffin]

Well, when it comes to whether one is an "engineer" or "a scientist", that's something else again - to my mind quite distinct from the question of whether a specific activity is science or engineering. It's quite possible for an individual to be a scientist, an engineer and a manager all at the same time, or at least on consecutive days. Many good scientists are also good engineers. and even a few managers are at least capable of being good engineers (so they tell me).