History of engineering

Question 1

What is the place of history in engineering

Answer 1

chronologies, present past to make sense of the present, meaning to the continuity

Question 2

What is technology?

Answer 2

• Form of human cultural activity for practical ends and purposes
• involves forming and transforming the material world through ideas and thoughts
• About solving problems and meeting needs in the real world
• Includes products, processes and systems

Question 3

When was the origin of technology?

Answer 3

Stone age

- Adopted systematic “technological actions” to survive

Question 4

What are some early technology developments?

Answer 4

• Tools made from wood and stone
• Stones were fractured to produce sharp edges for cutting
• grinding stones, wedge, carrying yoke, ax and spear
• Fashioning of clothing and utensils for domestic use

Question 5

When was fire developed?

Answer 5

Stone age

- Developed the controlled use of fire

Question 6

What did fertile river valleys provide?

Answer 6

Favourable conditions for crop growth

Question 7

When and where was the Agrarian society?

Answer 7

3300 BCE

- Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, others in India & China

Question 8

What happened during developments in Agrarian society

Answer 8

• Primitive sledge for crop transportation
  Inventions:
  1. Use of level balance
  2. Use of the wheel
  3. Smelting and working in metals
  4. Large scale control of water resources

Question 9

What was the building technology for Mesopotamians and Egyptians?

Answer 9

• Mesopotamians built using brick
• Egyptians built using stones
• Greek culture was built on Egyptian foundations

Question 10

Who first laid out the philosophical and scientific basis for knowledge?

Answer 10

The Greeks, 600 B.C

Question 11

Which philosophers attempted to explain the world on the basis of rationality rather than myth?

Answer 11

Thales, Socrates and Plato

Question 12

Why weren’t Greek technological achievements “spectacular”

Answer 12

Because the scholars disdained practical craft skills

Question 13

Who struggled to find philosophical basis for natural phenomena and humanity’s place in the universe?

Answer 13

Euclid, Pythagoras and Plato

Question 14

Who was Archimedes

Answer 14

• archimedes, 287-212 B.C

- Used mechanical models to arrive at the mathematical results but discarded them in his proofs

Question 15

Rise of the Roman empire - From who did the romans inherit their philosophy and mathematics?

Answer 15

• The Greeks

- But they did not encourage abstract science

Question 16

What was the place of engineering during the rise of the roman empire?

Answer 16

Engineering practice became more recognisable

• Had engineers competent in contracts, specifications and costing
• Built road systems as key military technology

Question 17

What did Romans excel at?

Answer 17

• Hydraulics and bringing water to towns in large stone aqueducts
• Reticulating it in lead pipes

Question 18

Fall of the Roman Empire - why and when did the roman empire fall?

Answer 18

• Rome became technologically stagnant, like Greece
• Productivity was limited by widespread use of slaves
• Use of slaves precluded efforts to develop labor-saving technology
• The Roman Empire crumbled around 400-500 A.D

Question 19

Post Roman Empire - what happened immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire?

Answer 19

• Relative chaos

- Expanding population - leading to cultivation of forested lowlands, required new agriculture technology

Question 20

Post Roman Empire 900 A.D. - What happened when feudalism emerged

Answer 20

• Kings and powerful nobles gave land grants
• Peasants became serfs to work the lands - led to primitive accumulation of capital that gave rise to the middle class of peasants
• Political sovereignty was fragmented, led to the growth of free cities.

Question 21

Emergence of craft based technology

Answer 21

Moving away from agriculture

City/town growth led to commodity production.
Formation of medieval craft guilds which planned production & supervised, trained & even employed workmen.
Economy based on serfs and craft workers rather than slaves encouraged the use of labor-saving technology.