“THE BENEFITS THAT ENGINEERING HAS BROUGHT TO THE WORLD”

Hazimi Bin Ismail1

1Student No.: 2007293606No. In Attendant List : 6

Group:EMD8M2ALecturer:Assoc. Prof. Ir Loo Huck Soo

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UiTM Shah Alam.

INTRODUCTION

Engineering itself is claimed by most of professions who apply science and

mathematics in their working life. Most of the people in the world need the engineers every

day, either they realize it or not. Almost everything we see, we have and we need, the

engineers are behind of those. It is confusing if the author does not define and explain what is

engineering and who is an engineer. Back to history, the word “engine”, came from the Latin

word ‘ingenium’, which means “innate quality, especially mental power hence a clever

invention” Then, the word ‘engineer’ came into human’s dictionary in order to appoint the

person who operates an engine, accurately engine’er. In modern life, an engineer is defined as

a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge,

mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. The readers should

not being confused between scientist and engineer. Like what Theodore von Kármán has

said, Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been. In

easy words, the scientist is the people who study and discover the new things, but the people

who make them reality are the engineers. The scientists maybe get their name in the history

book, but the engineers are the hidden people in stupendously contributing to the world. The

engineering is commonly divided into four major disciplines, civil, mechanical, electrical and

chemical engineering. In every discipline, there are more minor or specialized engineering

fields that have been used in modern world. However, it is easier for the author to categorize

the major achievements and their big impact of engineering to the world with concern of

different major of engineering.

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BENEFITS OF ENGINEERING

During author’s childhood, the author had always played games with his father during

the free time. The game was simple, the author had to memorize the name of inventors and

their inventions, and the father would ask who the inventor for the asking invention is. The

author could answer most of the question until the father asked a tricky question. The

question was “who invented the wheel?”.The author cannot answer until now. There are too

many claims on the invention of wheel, some people will say the Mesopotamians were the

right inventor, and some people claim Egyptian invented it first and it also could be other

ancient civilization. The truth is, no one can prove evidently on it, but the benefit of the wheel

is huge until now. That ancient genius should be awarded Nobel Prize, or we can simply put

the Nobel medal on his or her tomb if that person can be recognized. Why the author tells this

story? The answer is simple; the author is trying to explain that the engineering’s applications

themselves were existed long before the term of “engineering” has been used. The name does

not matter, what the matter are the applications and their benefits. Since ancient civilization,

the humans used simple mechanical devices such as pulley, lever and wheel to help their

daily lives. More people advanced, more advance the technology and engineering were. Look

at the 7 Ancient Wonders; some people would like to appreciate from the art and culture

point of view, but as an engineer, the author look at them as the symbolic and iconic of

tremendous engineering achievement on that time. Some of the engineering mechanisms in

them are still mysterious pieces of work until now. Let’s take the pyramids in Egypt as an

example; those pyramids still remain as one of the glorious engineering achievements in

human history.

Figure 1: Pyramids in Egypt

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During the prime time of Islamic world, the engineering stepped further in providing

benefits to the humankind. Jabir Ibn Hayyan, a Muslim chemist introduced the experimental

method for chemistry, laboratory apparatus, and some chemical processes of distillation,

liquefaction, crystallization and filtration. There were other tones of engineering

achievements discovered during the peak of Islamic civilization, and the engineering

achievements were being continued by Renaissance era in Europe.

Figure 2: Illustration of Jabir Ibn Hayyan in his chemical laboratory.

The Renaissance era provided more engineering excitements as much as its benefits to

the world. The first electrical engineer, William Gilbert published more than 1600

publications of ‘De Magnete’, who was the first person to use the term “electricity”.

Leonardo Da Vinci, who was a painter, engineer, architect, anatomist, writer and many others

was claimed as the most influential figure during Renaissance time. His idea of to get flying

could sound crazy during his time, but only came into reality a few centuries after him. The

idea is converted into concept, the concept becomes mechanism, and mechanism makes thing

works. What the fascinating is, the engineers are the major part of this process. The idea of

get flying should not be realized if the engineers did not take their part in the process of

making idea into reality.

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Figure 3 : Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Helicopter’ conceptual design.

The civil engineering is known as the oldest engineering discipline in human history,

excluding military engineering. The society would not work without civil engineering.

Infrastructure supports human’s daily life – roads and harbors, railways and airports,

hospitals, sports stadiums and schools, access to drinking water and shelter from the weather.

Because it works, the people take it for granted. Only when parts of it fail, or are taken away,

only then the people will realize its value. Today, civilization relies more than ever on teams

of inventive people to design, build and maintain the sophisticated environment that

surrounds us. Long time ago, ancient civilizations showed that civil engineering is one of the

key elements of the peaceful, harmonic and advance society. Aqueducts in Greek, Rome and

some other advanced ancient cities provided a systematic water distribution, coliseum in

Roman Empire where it act as the sports and entertainment venue, The Great Wall of China,

highly sophisticated and the longest defend wall in human history, which was used to defend

from the enemy attacks, and much more. The length of Great Wall of China itself stretches up

to 8,851.8 km, and it is 1.3 times longer than the Nil River.

Figure 4: The Great Wall of China

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In modern era, numerous technologies have assisted in the advancement of civil

engineering, including high-tech machinery, selection of materials, test equipment, and other

sciences. One by one the iconic gigantic building has been built. The Empire State, Petronas

Twin Tower, Taipei 101, Burj Khalifa and more to come have been the tallest building in the

world in their prime time. Nowadays, some buildings may not purposely build for their

functions, but they are used as the icons of the powerful, rich and advanced countries.

However, notable humanity and beneficial infrastructures still have been developed. The

mega dams in providing clean, green and renewable electricity are still being built and

developed, such as Three Gorges Dam in China, Itaipu in Brazil and Paraguay, Grand Coulee

in United States and many other large dams in the world. The civil engineering’s

contributions to the world cannot be simply listed in several pages, because the achievements

and their benefits are too many. Any beneficial buildings and infrastructures, waste and

environment technology, geological researches and studies and many more are parts of civil

engineering practices.

Figure 5 : The Three Gorges Dam in China is the largest Hydropower in the world.

The Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles

of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance

of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage

of heat and mechanical power for the design, production, and operation

of machines and tools. This discipline of engineering may be founded later than civil

engineering in modern world, but actually it was being practiced even in early ancient

civilization. Pulley, lever, and wheel are the examples of mechanical engineering works that

were being used a long time ago. In ancient Greece, the works of Archimedes deeply

influenced mechanics of buoyancy and hydraulic mechanism and Heron of Alexandria is

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known as the first person who created the first steam engine.  The medieval Chinese

horologist and engineer Su Song incorporated an escapement mechanism into

his astronomical clock tower two centuries before any escapement can be found in clocks of

medieval Europe, as well as the world's first known endless power-transmitting chain

drive.During the era of Islamic Golden Age, there were remarkable contributions

from Muslim inventors in the field of mechanical technology. Al-Jazari was one of them to

invent mechanical devices which now form the very basic of mechanisms, such as

the crankshaft and camshaft. Important breakthroughs in the foundations of mechanical

engineering occurred in England during the 17th century when Sir Isaac Newton both

formulated the three Newton's Laws of Motion and developed calculus. The mechanical

devices have been given many benefits to human kind since a long time ago, examples of the

devices are Noria which has been used to nourish their villages and crops with water,

windmill was used to extract energy from wind, and the watt engine was the key element in

promoting the mass production. In modern life, the transportation, energy generation, cooling

and heating equipments, manufacturing, foods and agriculture, and many more need the

mechanical engineers behind them. The land vehicles such as bicycle, cars, motorcycles,

busses and trucks are the most important key in transporting people. The study and

implementation of higher efficiency of these vehicles make the people commute faster, safer

and cheaper compared to early ages of the development. In easy words, any human-made

moving devices that give benefits to the human, all of them must be related to the mechanical

engineering works. Even the mechanical military equipment can give benefits to human kind,

also as much as its negative outcomes. It depends on peoples’ perspective of view to judge its

value.

Figure 6 : Memorial of 1817 Watt Steam Engine in Birmingham.

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Electrical engineering may not be popular as much as civil and mechanical

engineering during ancient civilization, but at least there is a discovery of 2000 years old

battery in Baghdad. It proved that there were studies on electrical things during the ancient

time even that electrical study did not sustain until the recent centuries. The interest of

electricity started in early of 17th century, and since then electrical studies advanced and

improved until now. The influential and notable figures such as Allesendro Volta, Michael

Faraday, George Ohm, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Heinrich Hertz and many more were

the people who contributed a lot in electrical development. The telegraph, telephone, bulb,

induction motor, and millions of other electrical and electronic devices have been developed

since then. The results and impact to the modern civilization are huge and too much to be

listed here. The easiest and closest benefit of electrical engineering is the computer, which the

author used to type this article. In computer itself, there are too many electrical and electronic

components operate and combine simultaneously to form a complete computer. Nowadays,

Figure 7: Ancient electric cell discovered in Baghdad.

it is difficult to avoid electrical devices and even when people are sleeping they still need

electricity and electrical devices. The dependency of people to the electrical and electronic

devices is too much and it becomes a concern if someday the electricity cannot be generated

as much as demand of human needs. However, that issue is not a big problem if to be

compared with the advantages that electrical engineering brought to the world.

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Figure 8 : Handphone becomes necessity in peoples’ lives

Based on Anwser.com, chemical engineering basically is applied chemistry. It is the

branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction, and operation of machines

and plants that perform chemical reactions to solve practical problems or make useful

products. Like all engineers, chemical engineers use math, physics, and economics to solve

technical problems. The difference between chemical engineers and other types of engineers

is that they apply knowledge of chemistry in addition to other engineering disciplines.The

chemical engineers apply the expertise on inorganic and organic industrial chemicals,

ceramics, fuels and petrochemicals, agrochemicals (fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides),

plastics and elastomers, oleochemicals, explosives, detergents and detergent products (soap,

shampoo, cleaning fluids), fragrances and flavors, additives, dietary supplements and

pharmaceuticals. Generally, everything relates to the chemical process, there must be

chemical engineering involved in them. Perhaps the chemical engineering is the youngest

engineering discipline, but its importance and applications are the essential for current world.

The research and development of biomass is one of the global efforts in order to reduce

dependency on the fossil fuel. The medicine, water treatment, discovery of new material and

synthetic rubber are just a little bit of the chemical engineering’s’ contributions to the world.

More or less, the significance of chemical engineering keeps growing day by day, and who

knows one day only by eating 1 tablet medicine can cure all the deceases.

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Figure 9: Process engineers design, construct and operate plants

If the readers still have to clarify the benefits of engineering, it is just simple. Here,

the author is trying to tell his daily routines which rely on the engineering. The author sleeps

at 1 a.m in the morning, before get to sleep, the author will switch on the fan and set the

alarm. Behind those two routines, the civil engineer is needed in constructing the power

plant, mechanical engineer is needed in power plant in order to make the turbine operate

smoothly and also in fan and clock manufacturing, chemical engineers are needed in

processing the fuels, and finally the electrical engineers are important in transmitting the

electricity into the author’s house and also in the fan and clock manufacturing as mechanical

engineer does. By just 2 simple routines, there are many engineers involved in the processes

to make it happen. How about if the author tells one whole day, starts from bathing, eat

breakfast, go to class, have lunch, entertainment activities and so on. By telling those, the

author can write a book to explain the duties and involvements of engineers behind those

routines. Inarguably, engineers are needed every time and everywhere, and someday if all the

engineers suddenly disappear, the author can guarantee on that time the world is at chaos.

CONCLUSION

Realize it or not, the people depend on the engineering every day. The engineering

has been contributed to human and the world since ancient time. When people get advanced

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and intelligent, more technology and engineering have been developed to fulfill human’s

needs. The specific benefits of broad engineering disciplines are too much to be listed and it

proves that the people cannot live without it. The sustainable of human civilization relies on

the engineering and it has been proved by the history that the more advanced civilization can

outmatch other weaker civilization. More or less, the people will continue to be reliable on

engineering in the future either the people want it or not. The engineers may not be recorded

in the history book, but they are the truly guardian of the humankind.

REFERENCES

1. About.com : Chemistry (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistrystudentfaqs/f/chemeng.htm.

2. Encyclopedia Britannica : Heron of Alexandria, [Online], Available: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/263417/Heron-of-Alexandria [29 March 2011].

3. Greatest Engineering Achievement of the 20th Century (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://www.greatachievements.org/.

4. Needham, J. (1986) Science and Civilization in China, Caves Books Ltd.

5. Siczkar, L. (2008) The Importance of Engineering to Society, 26 November, [Online], Available: http://iwarrior.uwaterloo.ca/props/?module=displaystory&story_id=4009&format=html&edition_id=102 [28 March 2011].

6. Symons, A. (2010) The Importance of Engineering, 29 March, [Online], Available: http://sciencecampaign.org.uk/?p=894 [28 March 2011].

7. Wikipedia : Chemical Engineering (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_engineering.

8. Wikipedia : Civil Engineering (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_engineering.

9. Wikipedia : Electrical Engineering (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering.

10. Wikipedia : Engineering (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering.

11. Wikipedia : Mechanical Engineering (2011), March, [Online], Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_engineering#cite_note-3.

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