Engineering
History
When did engineering begin?
Who were the first engineers?
What were the first engineering
designs?
The Beginnings of Engineering:
6000 - 3000 B.C.
Probably occurred in Asia Minor or Africa 8000
years ago
Change from nomadic life (hunter - gatherers)
The Agrarian Society (agriculture)
forms the basis of civilization
cultivate plants - the need for increased food
production
domesticate animals - for food and work
build permanent houses in community group

The Beginnings of Engineering:
6000 - 3000 B.C.
Increased food production permitted time to
engage in other activities such as:
Rulers - to stabilize community life land
ownership
- to complete work
- organize work force
- beginnings of a class society
supervisors
foremen
workers - artisans
 Artisans - considered to be the first engineers

The Beginnings of Engineering:
6000 - 3000 B.C.
Early Achievements in this Era

Methods of producing fire at will

Melting certain rocklike materials to produce
copper and bronze tools

Development of a system of symbols for
written communications
The Beginning of Engineering:
6000 - 3000 B.C.
Major Engineering Projects or
Inventions
Irrigation systems to promote crop growth
Animal-, water-, and wind-driven gristmills
The wheel and axle
 Plow
 Yoke

The Beginning of Engineering:
6000 - 3000 B.C.
Mesopotamia “cradle of civilization”

Clay tile material used for permanent documentation

Clay tablets unearthed which show:
maps of caravan routes including mountains, cities
and water
city plans
irrigation systems
water supply systems
road maps (networks)
The Beginning of Engineering:
6000 - 3000 B.C.

Outstanding contributions of mathematics
 Sexagesimal system
 divided circle into 360 degrees
 hour into 60 minutes
 minute into 60 seconds
Engineering in Early
Civilizations:3000 -600 B.C.

Babylonian engineers:
Familiar with basic arithmetic and algebra computing
areas and volumes of land excavations
Number system based on 60 instead of 10
Buildings were constructed using basic engineering
principles still used today
Primitive arches used in hydraulic works
Bridges were built with stone piers carrying wooden
stringers
Roads were surfaced with a naturally occurring asphalt,
a construction system not used again until the nineteenth
century

Engineering in Early
Civilizations:3000 -600 B.C.

Egyptian Engineers
Pyramid Age - 2900 B.C and lasts 1000 years
2,300,000 building stones (2.5 tons each) used to
build the Great Pyramid of Cheops
Outstanding examples of engineering skills in
land measurement and building layout -transit
and level
 Irrigation systems

Science of the Greeks and
Romans: 600 B.C. - 400 A.D.

Engineering in Greece:
Had its origin in Egypt
 Better known for the intensive development of
borrowed ideas than for creativity and invention
 Famous for outstanding philosophers:
 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (physical scientist) and
Archimedes (mathematics)

Science of the Greeks and
Romans: 600 B.C. - 400 A.D.

Engineering in Greece:
Use of ideas was retarded because of the belief
that verification and experimentation, which
required manual labor, were only fit for slaves.
 Archimedes water screw
 Crossbow
 Catapult

Science of the Greeks and
Romans: 600 B.C. - 400 A.D.

Roman Engineering
Liberally borrowed scientific and engineering
knowledge from the conquered countries for use in
warfare and in their public works
 Superior in the application of ideas and techniques
 Hero’s Inventions:
Gear driven odometer on chariot
Steam turbine
Hydraulic clock
Fire engine

Science of the Greeks and
Romans: 600 B.C. - 400 A.D.

Roman Engineering
Roman road systems- subbase, compact base,
topcoat 180,000 miles
 Aqueducts for water supply
 Sanitary systems
 Engineering principles applies to military tactics

Engineering in the Middle
Ages: 1st to 16th Centuries
Collapse of the Roman Empire 4th and 5th centuries A.D.
was known as the Dark Ages, but was it?
The word engineer began to appear. Its root lies in the
Latin word ingeniare, “to design or devise”
Animals and waterwheels began to replace humans as the
power source (the growth of Christianity, an aversion to
slaves as a primary source of power)
Arabs were developing paper making, chemistry, and
optics
Sugar refining, soap making, and perfume distilling
became part of the culture
Chinese were developing clocks, astronomical
instruments, the loom and spinning wheel, and gunpowder

Engineering in the Middle
Ages: 1st to 16th Centuries
Johann Gutenburg - movable type produced the first
books printed on paper
 Leonardo da Vinci - acclaimed as a great artist, was
also an engineer, inventor and architect
 Military and civil engineering feats such as catapults
bridges and buildings
 Sketches of future engineering devices such as:

Machine Gun
Helicopter
Drawbridge
Breach-loading Cannon
Roller Bearings Universal Joint
Tanks
The Revival of Science:
17th and 18th Centuries
Galileo Discovers:
Gravitational acceleration- velocity a body achieves
while falling, is independent of weight
Earth moves around the sun
Torricelli and Pascal Discovers:
hydrostatics and dynamics develop the barometer
Boyle Discovers:
expansion quality of air and the correlation between
temperature, volume, and pressure

The Revival of Science:
17th and 18th Centuries
Hooke Discovers:
material lengthens in proportion to the force exerted
on it, up to the elastic limit, and in compression it
shortens in a similar fashion
 Huygens develops
spiral watch spring and the pendulum clock and
measures gravitational acceleration
 Newton who is famous for his three basic laws of
motion
developed differential calculus, essential to
mathematical analysis of most physical systems

The Revival of Science:
17th and 18th Centuries

The Developing Industrial Age
James Watt - steam engine for textile mills, iron
furnaces, rolling mills and other industries
 Hargreaves, Crampton, and Jurgen develops the
spinning and weaving machinery
 Pieter van Musschenbroek develops a device to hold
a static electrical charge, now called the leyden jar
forerunner to the capacitor
 Luigi Galvani- principles of electrical conduction
 Alessandro Volta - principles of the electric battery

Beginnings of Modern
Science: 19th Century
Andre-Marie Ampere confirms the flow of electrical
current, leading to the science of electrodynamics
 Michael Faraday found the means to generate
electricity by moving a conductor through a magnetic
field
 Jagadis Chandra Bose demonstrated the
transmission of electric signals through space;
Marconi was awarded a patent for the same
achievement a year later
 Henry Cort develops a method of refining iron
 James Watt refines and produces an efficient steam
engine
 At last good iron for machines and power plants to
operate the machinery

20th Century Technology
Henry Ford - Builds and sells automobiles and mass
production emerges
 Thomas Edison and Lee DeForest develop electrical
equipment and electron tubes which starts the widespread
use of power systems and communication networks
 Nikola Tesla introduces the first practical application of
alternating current, the polyphase induction motor
 Orville & Wilbur Wright develop powered aircraft
 Wallace Carothers leads a team of organic chemists and
chemical engineer researchers at duPont to develop
NYLON the first of many “synthetic fibers”. The beginnings
of polymer research

20th Century Technology
Using Albert Einstein's model “E=mc2 scientists from
Europe and the United States at the University of
Chicago produce the first nuclear pile. The age of
controlled nuclear reaction begins.
 John Brainerd , at the University of Pennsylvania’s
Moore School of Engineering develop the first
computer called the “ENIAC”. It weighted over 30 tons
and occupied over 1500 square feet.
 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley,
at Bell Labs, discovered that current changes in one
part of a diode caused current changes in another part
of a diode and create the transistor.

20th Century Technology
Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor discovers
that the transistor’s silicon crystal could be made to be its
own circuit board. “transistors - the switch that controls
the world”
 Pratt & Whitney develop turbojet engines
 Boeing Airplane Company develop the Boeing 707
capable of transporting 180 passangers at speeds of 600
mph
 Theodore Maiman produces the first working laser which
has mushroomed to encompass surgeons, transmit
telephone calls, track storms, to checkout in
supermarkets, to weld steel, to cut fabric and to produce
holograms

20th Century Technology
Communication Satellites - now handle more than half
of all transoceanic telephone, television and audio
network program distribution
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And the list goes ON AND
ON
AND
ON