Engineering & Society: History of Engineering

• The study notes below cover the "History of Engineering"
• Reference is made to Engineering & Society, Chapter 1 & 2

What's Important?

• Chronologies of past events help in understanding why things happened
• History presents the past in a way that makes more sense of the present
• History gives meaning to the continuity to apparently unrelated events
• History makes the connection between engineering & different aspects of human society

Engineering in Society

• Engineering's origin dates back to the Stone Age, when stones were used to make weapons/fire
• Technology, science, & engineering began as distinct areas of human endeavor at different periods of human history
• The connection between technology, science, & engineering are; how the physical world works, problem solving, convenience for man, meeting needs
• Cai Lun (蔡伦; CE 48–121) invented the composition for paper along with the papermaking process
• Engineering impacts both society and the world
• Engineering activities impact engineers in the future

What is Technology?

• Technology is a form of human cultural activity for practical ends & purposes
• It involves forming & transforming the material world through ideas & thoughts, typically done with tools & procedures
• Technology involves solving problems & meeting needs in the real world
• It includes products, processes, and systems, that consider the environment for their development & use

Early Technologies

• The origin of technology dates from the Stone Age
• Early human ancestors were hunter-gatherers
• They took advantage of animal life and seasonal plant variation
• They adopted systematic “technological actions” to survive
• Tools were made from wood and stone for survival
• Stones were fractured to produce sharp edges for cutting
• Other tools included grinding stones, the wedge, carrying yoke, the ax & the spear
• Early humans developed the controlled use of fire
• They fashioned clothing & utensils for domestic use

Advancements

• Fertile river valleys provided favorable conditions for crop growth
• Animals were domesticated for use as beasts of burden
• Agrarian societies were established, for example, in Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, India & China
• The primitive sledge was used for crop transportation
• The balance beam was used for weighing during 5000 B.C. in Egypt
• The wheel was used for potter's wheels and chariots during 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia
• Smelting & working of metals was advanced as a technology
• Large-scale control of water resources was implemented in river-based societies
• Societies developed transportation systems for mobility and building technology

Early Building Technologies

• Mesopotamians built using brick
• Egyptians built using stone
• The Great Pyramid of Gizeh is 230m square, 147m high
• It was built using massive stone blocks (2 to 30 tons each)
• They were assembled with accuracy that remains impressive today
• Greek culture was built on Egyptian foundations

Classical Antiquity

• The Greeks laid the first philosophical & scientific basis for knowledge in 600 B.C.
• Philosophers such as Thales, Socrates & Plato attempted to explain the world with rationality rather than myth
• Greek technological achievements were not spectacular as scholars disdained practical craft skills
• Euclid, Pythagoras & Plato struggled to find philosophical basis for natural phenomena & humanity's place in the universe
• Archimedes (287-212 B.C.) used mechanical models to arrive at mathematical results, but discarded them in his proofs

Roman Empire

• Romans inherited Greek philosophy & mathematics
• However, they did not encourage abstract science
• Engineering practice became more recognizable
• Engineers became competent in contracts, specifications & costing
• The Romans built road systems as key military technology
• Roads facilitated rapid troop movement throughout the empire
• Romans excelled in hydraulics, bringing water to towns in large stone aquaducts & reticulating it in lead pipes
• Eventually like Greece, Rome became technologically stagnant
• Widespread use of slaves limited productivity preventing efforts to develop labor-saving technology
• Engineering advances in the military & transport fields were driven by imperial endeavors to invade & fortify cities
• The Roman Empire crumbled around 400-500 A.D.

Post Roman Empire

• Relative chaos followed the collapse of the Roman Empire
• Expanding population cultivated forested lowlands requiring "new" agricultural technology to till the heavy soils of Northern Europe
• By 900 A.D., feudalism emerged, kings & powerful nobles gave land grants (not ownership) to members of their retinues
• These members then rendered military services
• Peasants became serfs to work the lands resulting in primitive accumulation of capital leading to middle class of peasants
• Political sovereignty was fragmented, leading to growth of free cities

Craft-Based Technology

• City/town growth led to commodity production
• Medieval craft guilds formed planning production, supervising, training, and employing workmen
• An economy based on serfs and craft workers rather than slaves encouraged the use of labor-saving technology.

European Social Changes

• The bubonic plague, also known as the "black death" occurred in Europe in A.D. 1348
• Plague caused over 40% loss of population over two generations creating a labor shortage
• Power based on land holding was challenged by town-based merchants
• This resulted in a move away from feudalism
• Power was increasingly centralized in monarchies
• Monarchs were suspicious of feudal barons

Technologies and Monarchies

• Emergence of medieval technologies in military & printing helped to strengthen the monarchies
• Monarchs introduced standing armies, permanent bureaucracy, taxation, law and the beginnings of unified markets
• Rich monarchs, backed by powerful merchants, set the conditions for the rise of merchant capitalism
• Ships set sail to open the way for the discovery of the New World of America

Preambles to the Renaissance

• Rediscovery of ancient Greek & Roman culture & the discovery of America brought new ideas & knowledge to Europe
• Poets, artists & sculptors embraced new humanistic perspectives that were far from medieval religious symbolism
• Centers were established for learning in theology, law & medicine
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the best example of a Renaissance man

The Scientific Revolution

• At the end of the 16th century, observation & experiment presented challenges to centuries-old dogma
• This presented a new view of nature
• Galileo (1564-1642) developed the telescope
• From observation of Jupiter's satellites, he concluded that the Earth revolved around the Sun
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an enthusiast for industrial science
• He used inductive approach to draw conclusions from experimental data
• Rene Descartes (1596-1650) emphasized deductive approach through mathematics
• Descartes advocated that science & religion should be separated to promote the advance of science

Scientific World View

• In the 17th century, the rise of capitalism led to renewed interest in the practical orientation of knowledge in artisans' trade practices
• Intellectual assumptions & attitudes toward knowledge from the Middle Ages yielded to a new view of the world where knowledge was much less controlled by the Church
• The acceptance of the solar system replaced the belief that cosmos of Aristotle was Earth-centered
• The universe was seen to obey Newton's law
• Knowledge became a means of controlling nature

Exploration & Colonialism

• With ships fitted with navigational aids & firearms, Europe set out to explore & conquer foreign lands to seize new resources
• In the 16th century, Spain & Portugal led the overseas conquests for gold, silver, etc.
• The Netherlands dominated world trades & founded profitable empires in the East & West Indies in the early 17th century
• Britain used its large coal deposits to drive its industries and surpassed the Netherlands to build a vast colonial empire

Agricultural and Capital Revolution

• Monopolies in mining, manufacturing & foreign trade were granted by monarchs to their court favorites & merchant guilds
• In 1624, British parliament reduced the royal power
• Land holding under the feudal system was officially abolished, large estates of the defeated Royalists were sold
• Rich merchants implemented efficient large-scale scientific farming practices that led to increase in productivity
• This led to satisfy the expanding markets triggering the Agricultural Revolution

Preambles to Industrial Revolution

• By early 18th century, urban merchants with banking & exchange practices gained control of commodity production
• Capitalists formed a new social class & challenged religious authority & hereditary privileges
• They emphasized individual freedom to invest & trade as he saw fit
• Plunder from the colonies helped to finance the European industrial take-off
• Continuous exploitation of colonial resources sustained European industrial growth & left a legacy of under-developed colonies

Industrial Revolution Take-off

• In England, the guilds were weakened by anti-monopoly legislation
• In 1709, Abraham Darby discovered how to use coal to smelt iron for raw materials to make machines & structures
• In 1776, Adam Smith described the division of labor in pin making that greatly increased workers' productivity
• Once production processes were standardized, each process could then be replaced by a machine
• The development of these machines completed the transformation to modern industrial production

Impact of the Industrial Revolution

• Mechanization of tasks increased machines for spinning, sewing, iron smelting, etc
• Journeymen were reduced to machine minders where people sold their raw labor power to owners of factories & mills
• The industrial revolution provided employment for those displaced from the land
• The Social & economic impact of the industrial revolution was population growth which was an underlying cause & a fuel for the industrial revolution
• Population growth provided labor for new industries & markets for their products

Power to Drive Machines

• Steam power was harnessed for use in machines by early 17th century
• In 1698, Thomas Savery invented & patented a primitive steam engine
• James Watt improved on the efficiency of the steam engine & introduced adaptation in 1782 to produce rotary motion
• James Watt's (1736-1819) improved steam engine drove new machinery leading British industry to world leadership
• The Steam engine formed the basis for the rise of the mechanical engineering profession

Railways

• In 1804, Richard Trevithick built the first steam-powered locomotive
• In 1825, wrought iron rails were introduced and the success of George Stephenson's "Rocket" locomotive in 1829 set the stage for the railway age
• Railway enabled the ability to move people & goods quickly, reliably & economically
• This opened up broader markets for goods & services
• The building of railroads was a major factor in the colonization of much of the rest of the world

Contributors to Industrial Revolution

• John Rennie (1716 – 1821)
• John Smeaton (1724 – 1792)
• Thomas Telford (1757 – 1834), the first British Civil Engineer to be elected President of ICE
• Marc Isambard Brunel (1769 – 1849)
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 – 1859)
• George Stephenson (1781 – 1848), the 1st President of IMechE, 1847

High Point

• The Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851, was a celebration of British engineers and engineering
• This marked the high point of British industrial ascendancy

Challenge from the US

• Settlers in US were extremely utilitarian, dissenters from established churches
• They saw knowledge as a commodity to satisfy human needs, characterized by a frontier spirit of inventiveness
• American entrepreneurs designed industrial equipment that reduced their dependence on labor
• American engineers took the lead in machine shop techniques to develop effective grinding & milling machines
• The American system of manufacture was characterized by highly standardized products of interchangeable parts
• The early American Republic leaders recognized the need to encourage domestic manufacture, especially basic military equipment
• Expansion of American railroads opened up national markets for machine tools
• Tensions arose between slave-owning South and the rapidly industrialized North leading to the devastating American Civil War (1861-1865) with both sides fought with "modern" weapons
• After the civil war, the railroads united the nations to move ahead with greater momentum
• The 1st trans continental rail link saw trainloads of buffalo skins going east for manufacture into consumer products
• Moral worth of a person is determined by its outcome

Pioneer American Engineers

• Robert Fulton (1765-1815)
  • Best known for his pioneering work on steamboats
• Eli Whitney (1765-1825)
  • Patented a simple cotton gin to separate fibre from seeds
  • Invented a milling machine with automatic feed in 1820

Britain's Decline

• Britain's loss of industrial leadership from 1850s onwards reflected complacency in society at large
• The peaceful & protracted transfer of power from aristocracy to rising capitalist state fostered a self-limiting development in Britain
• Industrialization in Britain was indigenous and more accommodated to existing social structure
• Pressures to adopt values & interests of industrialization were resisted by the ruling elite
• Hence, Britain did not change radically & has barely done so even now
• Universities emphasized the pursuit of scientific knowledge for its own sake, they neglected & undervalued commercial application
• British preoccupation with individually fitted final product discouraged standardization
• This precipitated Britain's relative decline
• Dominance of the steam engine delayed other form of power development in Britain

Spread of Industrialization

• France & Germany developed the internal combustion machine
• They competed with each other for its creation
• In the US, consumers were prepared to buy standard items creating the opportunity for mass production
• Technological convergence in the US spurred key metal-working industries with common technological needs
• The same machine tools were used across a range of industries
• Over several decades within the same manufacturing enterprises, there was a progression of products from guns to machine tools, to sewing machines, bicycles, motorcycles, & finally to automobiles
• Innovative development of machine tools & their use to produce standardized, interchangeable parts, paved the way for Henry Ford to use moving assembly-line techniques to produce automobiles
• Manufacturing replaced agriculture as the leading source of economic growth in the US from 1860 to 1900
• In the 2nd half of the 19th century, the manufacturing industry itself transformed as manufacturers shifted to producing products for consumers to producers
• Heavy industry which included steel, iron, petroleum & machinery grew rapidly and was boosted by a number of technical innovations
• Falling price of raw materials stimulated new demands & further technological changes

Germany

• Bismarck became Chancellor of Germany in 1871 and led a concerted drive towards industrialization
• He created a state-owned national railway to open up the internal market
• There was a push to expand foreign trade in the export of industrial products
• The German government strongly promoted education relevant to industrialization
• German manufacturers set up closely integrated industrial research laboratories
• By 1900, Germany had surpassed Britain as an industrial power, especially in the field of university-level technical expertise

International Engineers

• Sir Henry Bessemer (1813 - 1898)
• Gustave Eiffel (1832 - 1923)
• Thomas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931)

The Rise of Engineering

• During the Industrial Revolution, engineer training in Britain involved paying a substantial fee for a 5-year pupilage in an engineer's office
• Britain did not establish engineering schools in London & Glasgow Universities until 1840
• The failure to recognize the need for systematic science-based education for technologists allowed other countries to overtake Britain
• Formal & informal associations of practicing engineers, manufacturers, & scientists allowed exchange of ideas & experience in the general development of the engineering profession
• John Smeaton was the first early leader of the engineering profession.
• He was also the 1st Englishman to differentiate himself as a "Civil” engineer (rather than military)
• In 1771, Smeaton & some colleagues formed the Smeatonian society of Civil Engineers
• The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) was formed in 1818 to distinguished itself from other societies
• In 1820, Thomas Thelford was a leading engineer of that time, and he became the President of ICE
• In 1828, he obtained the Royal Charter for ICE giving it the status as the leader of the profession
• Other major powers adopted a much more structured approach to training engineers
• In 1676, France set up a specialized army Corps of Engineers
• In 1747, France established the 1st engineering school, the Ecole Nationale des Ponts st Chaussees
• In 1794, the Ecole Polytechnique was established
• The engineering profession in France continues to enjoy high social status

Engineering in the US and Germany

• US Military Academy at West Point, established in 1802, was the first American military engineering school
• The first non military engineering school in America, was the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, established in 1823 in New York
• The success of Rensselaer in attracting students forced other established US universities to introduce technical courses
• Germany established the Berlin University in 1809 which was a prototype for the modern research university with academic rigor & laboratory experiments
• Germany also established polytechnics with the 1st at Karlsruhe in 1825
• In Japan, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 dismantled the Japanese feudal system
• The Meiji government set up the physical & educational infrastructure for industrialization
• The Imperial College of Engineering was established in Tokyo in 1873 and it emphasized practical & academic skills
• By the end of the Meiji era in 1912, there were 4 Imperial Universities, all with engineering facilities
• Military training centers, such as the Japanese Naval Academy (1870), were also important for engineering education
• The history of the engineering profession reflected the transformation wrought by technological changes
• Civil engineering was increasingly differentiated from military engineering in the 17th & 18th century
• Mechanical engineering came with the steam engine & railroads in the late 18th and early 19th century
• As engineering practice developed, many specializations were added to these basic disciplines
• The previous role of science had been to explain & systemize what the engineer had done
• Technical innovations led to major advances in science
• By mid 19th century, craft skills & technical know-how required much closer interaction between science & engineering
• By end 19th century, major new industries emerged based on science & systematic research
• Individual inventors & engineers gave way to scientists & industrial researchers in time becoming large scale R&D development departments associated with industrial enterprises

Timeline of Modern Technology

• 1851 - Crystal Palace Exhibition
• 1869 - Union Pacific Railroad across US, Suez Canal opened
• 1876 – Invention of telephone, 1st internal combustion engine
• 1878 – Beginning of electric lighting
• 1900 - Invention of radio
• 1903 – Wilbur Wright's propeller biplane flight
• 1913 - Ford moving assembly line
• 1914 - Panama Canal opened
• 1926 - Invention of TV
• 1930 - Invention of gas turbine
• 1942 – 1st electronic computer
• 1947 - Invention of transistor
• 1957 - Sputnik launched
• 1958 – 1st integrated circuit
• 1969 - 1st man on the moon
• 1977 - 1st personal computer
• 1981 - Microsoft MS-DOS computer operating system
• 1982 - Compact disc
• 1996 - "Dolly" the cloned sheep was born on 5 July
• 1997 onwards ...