History of engineering Flashcards
What is the place of history in engineering
chronologies, present past to make sense of the present, meaning to the continuity
What is technology?
- 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
When was the origin of technology?
Stone age
- Adopted systematic “technological actions” to survive
What are some early technology developments?
- 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
When was fire developed?
Stone age
- Developed the controlled use of fire
What did fertile river valleys provide?
Favourable conditions for crop growth
When and where was the Agrarian society?
3300 BCE
- Mesopotamia, the Nile Valley, others in India & China
What happened during developments in Agrarian society
- 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
What was the building technology for Mesopotamians and Egyptians?
- Mesopotamians built using brick
- Egyptians built using stones
- Greek culture was built on Egyptian foundations
Who first laid out the philosophical and scientific basis for knowledge?
The Greeks, 600 B.C
Which philosophers attempted to explain the world on the basis of rationality rather than myth?
Thales, Socrates and Plato
Why weren’t Greek technological achievements “spectacular”
Because the scholars disdained practical craft skills
Who struggled to find philosophical basis for natural phenomena and humanity’s place in the universe?
Euclid, Pythagoras and Plato
Who was Archimedes
- archimedes, 287-212 B.C
- Used mechanical models to arrive at the mathematical results but discarded them in his proofs
Rise of the Roman empire - From who did the romans inherit their philosophy and mathematics?
- The Greeks
- But they did not encourage abstract science
What was the place of engineering during the rise of the roman empire?
Engineering practice became more recognisable
- Had engineers competent in contracts, specifications and costing
- Built road systems as key military technology
What did Romans excel at?
- Hydraulics and bringing water to towns in large stone aqueducts
- Reticulating it in lead pipes
Fall of the Roman Empire - why and when did the roman empire fall?
- 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
Post Roman Empire - what happened immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire?
- Relative chaos
- Expanding population - leading to cultivation of forested lowlands, required new agriculture technology
Post Roman Empire 900 A.D. - What happened when feudalism emerged
- 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.
Emergence of craft based technology
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.
