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Thinking like an Engineer Chapter 1: Science, Technology and Values
Technology comes from a Greek word meaning techne manual art and ology explanation or study. ... An institute of technology is a place to study practical inventions: how to make them and how to organize them. If we refer to technology as inventions to make manual labor easier, then technology is older than science by thousands of years. But technology is not merely applied science.
Science is explicit, systematic knowledge of how nature works; technology is explicit, systematic knowledge of how to make useful things. ... Those who call themselves engineers are those who make technology. ... Some people confuse engineering with mere technology.
Engineers come from a French word that has been around for only about four hundred years. ... The first people to be called engineers were soldiers associated to catapults, siege towers, artillery and others engines of war. They were engineers in the sense that drivers of a locomotive were engineers, because they operated engines. ... They also provided a center of research in engineering and a training ground for engineers. ... They established another corps of engineers to build and maintain nation’s bridges, roads and canals. They set up the first school for training officers; these were called civil engineers and were admired all over Europe. Although their work resembled that of architects, but deferred from architects because:
1- Engineers were much better trained in new mathematics and physics than architects. ...
Civil engineers slowly took over much of the work that once should have been the domain of architects. ...
Eugene Ferguson wrote the imperatives of engineering in which he claimed that engineers:
1- Strive for efficiency. ...
This is what engineers do unless they consciously try to do something else. Engineers define efficiency so that they can measure it they assign numbers, and thereafter seek to control it. ... Engineers preference for labor saving devices which leaves many unemployed.
Approximate Word count = 1555
Approximate Pages = 6.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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