The origin of engineering and the beginings of engineering education
The history of engineering can be roughly divided into four overlapping phases, each marked by a revolution
Pre-scientific revolution: The prehistory of modern engineering features ancient master builders and Renaissance engineers such as Leonardo da Vinci. The forerunners of engineers, practical artists and craftsmen, proceeded mainly by trial and error. Yet tinkering combined with imagination produced many marvelous devices. Many ancient monuments cannot fail to incite admiration. The admiration is embodied in the name “engineer” itself. It originated in the eleventh century from the Latin ingeniator, meaning one with ingenium, the ingenious one. The name, used for builders of ingenious fortifications or makers of ingenious devices, was closely related to the notion of ingenuity, which was captured in the old meaning of “engine” until the word was taken over by steam engines and its like. Leonardo da Vinci bore the official title of Ingegnere Generale. His notebooks reveal that some Renaissance engineers began to ask systematically what works and why.
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Industrial revolution: From the eighteenth through early nineteenth century, civil and mechanical engineers changed from practical artists to scientific professionals.
*The first phase of modern engineering emerged in the Scientific Revolution. Galileo’s Two New Sciences, which seeks systematic explanations and adopts a scientific approach to practical problems, is a landmark regarded by many engineer historians as the beginning of structural analysis, the mathematical representation and design of building structures. This phase of engineering lasted through the First Industrial Revolution, when machines, increasingly powered by steam engines, started to replace muscles in most production. While pulling off the revolution, traditional artisans transformed themselves to modern professionals. The French, more rationalistic oriented, spearheaded civil engineering with emphasis on mathematics and developed university engineering education under the sponsorship of their government. The British, more empirically oriented, pioneered mechanical engineering and autonomous professional societies under the laissez-faire attitude of their government. Gradually, practical thinking became scientific in addition to intuitive, as engineers developed mathematical analysis and controlled experiments. Technical training shifted from apprenticeship to university education. Information flowed more quickly in organized meetings and journal publications as professional societies emerged.
Second industrial revolution: In the century before World War II, chemical, electrical, and other science-based engineering branches developed electricity, telecommunications, cars, airplanes, and mass production. The second industrial revolution, symbolized by the advent of electricity and mass production, was driven by many branches of engineering. Chemical and electrical engineering developed in close collaboration with chemistry and physics and played vital roles in the rise of chemical, electrical, and telecommunication industries. Marine engineers tamed the peril of ocean exploration. Aeronautic engineers turned the ancient dream of flight into a travel convenience for ordinary people. Control engineers accelerated the pace of automation. Industrial engineers designed and managed mass production and distribution systems. College engineering curricula were well established and graduate schools appeared. Workshops turned into to laboratories, tinkering became industrial research, and individual inventions were organized into systematic innovations.
* Information revolution: As engineering science matured after the war, microelectronics, computers, and telecommunications jointly produced information technology. Research and development boomed in all fields of science and technology after World War II, partly because of the Cold War and the Sputnik effect. The explosion of engineering research, which used to lagged behind natural science, was especially impressive, as can be seen from the relative expansion of graduate education. Engineering was also stimulated by new technologies, notably aerospace, microelectronics, computers, novel means of telecommunications from the Internet to cell phones. Turbojet and rocket engines propelled aeronautic engineering into unprecedented height and spawned astronautic engineering. Utilization of atomic and nuclear power brought nuclear engineering. Advanced materials with performance hitherto undreamed of poured out from the laboratories of materials science and engineering. Above all, microelectronics, telecommunications, and computer engineering joined force to precipitate the information revolution in which intellectual chores are increasingly alleviated by machines.
