Activity 1

History of engineering

The first engineer known by name and achievement is Imhotep, builder of the Step Pyramid at
Ṣaqqārah, Egypt, probably about 2550 bce. Imhotep’s successors—Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and
Roman—carried civil engineering to remarkable heights on the basis of empirical methods aided
by arithmetic, geometry, and a smattering of physical science. The Pharos (lighthouse) of
Alexandria, Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, the Colosseum in Rome, the Persian and Roman road
systems, the Pont du Gard aqueduct in France, and many other large structures, some of which
endure to this day, testify to their skill, imagination, and daring. Of many treatises written by
them, one in particular survives to provide a picture of engineering education and practice in
classical times: Vitruvius’s De architectura, published in Rome in the 1st century ce, a 10-volume
work covering building materials, construction methods, hydraulics, measurement, and town
planning. In construction, medieval European engineers carried technique, in the form of the
Gothic arch and flying buttress, to a height unknown to the Romans. The sketchbook of the 13th-
century French engineer Villard de Honnecourt reveals a wide knowledge of mathematics,
geometry, natural and physical science, and draftsmanship. In Asia, engineering had a separate but
very similar development, with more and more sophisticated techniques of construction,
hydraulics, and metallurgy helping to create advanced civilizations such as the Mongol empire,
whose large, beautiful cities impressed Marco Polo in the 13th century.

Civil engineering emerged as a separate discipline in the 18th century, when the first professional
societies and schools of engineering were founded. Civil engineers of the 19th century built
structures of all kinds, designed water-supply and sanitation systems, laid out railroad and
highway networks, and planned cities. England and Scotland were the birthplace of mechanical
engineering, as a derivation of the inventions of the Scottish engineer James Watt and the textile
machinists of the Industrial Revolution. The development of the British machine-tool industry gave
tremendous impetus to the study of mechanical engineering both in Britain and abroad. The
growth of knowledge of electricity—from Alessandro Volta’s original electric cell of 1800 through
the experiments of Michael Faraday and others, culminating in 1872 in the Gramme dynamo and
electric motor (named after the Belgian Zénobe-Théophile Gramme)—led to the development of
electrical and electronics engineering. The electronics aspect became prominent through the work
of such scientists as James Clerk Maxwell of Britain and Heinrich Hertz of Germany in the late 19th
century. Major advances came with the development of the vacuum tube by Lee de Forest of the
United States in the early 20th century and the invention of the transistor in the mid-20th century.
In the late 20th century electrical and electronics engineers outnumbered all others in the world.
Engineering, the application of science to the optimum conversion of the resources of nature to
the uses of humankind. The field has been defined by the Engineers Council for Professional
Development, in the United States, as the creative application of “scientific principles to design or
develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them
singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design;
or to forecast their behaviour under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended
function, economics of operation and safety to life and property.” The term engineering is
sometimes more loosely defined, especially in Great Britain, as the manufacture or assembly of
engines, machine tools, and machine parts. The words engine and ingenious are derived from the
same Latin root, ingenerare, which means “to create.” The early English verb engine meant “to
contrive.” Thus, the engines of war were devices such as catapults, floating bridges, and assault
towers; their designer was the “engine-er,” or military engineer. The counterpart of the military
engineer was the civil engineer, who applied essentially the same knowledge and skills to
designing buildings, streets, water supplies, sewage systems, and other projects. The function of
the scientist is to know, while that of the engineer is to do. Scientists add to the store of verified
systematized knowledge of the physical world, and engineers bring this knowledge to bear on
practical problems. Engineering is based principally on physics, chemistry, and mathematics and
their extensions into materials science, solid and fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, transfer and
rate processes, and systems analysis. Engineers employ two types of natural resources—materials
and energy. Materials are useful because of their properties: their strength, ease of fabrication,
lightness, or durability; their ability to insulate or conduct; their chemical, electrical, or acoustical
properties.

2.- Interpretacion de palabras claves e Ideas principales.

1er Párrafo

Engineer: persona que usa el ingenio para resolver problemas.

Science: grupo de conocimiento.

System: conjunto de elementos.

Imagination: facilidad para crear ideas.

Construction: crear estructuras.

Parafrasear ideas Principales:

- Imhotep fue el primer Ingeniero en construir una Pirámide.

- Algunos templos de Roma y Jerusalén en la actualidad están presentes.

2do Párrafo

Professional: persona que ejerce una profesión.

Structures: grupo de elementos.

Development: crecimiento de la industria.

Advances: Ir hacia adelante con los avances.

Invention: diseños de equipos.

Parafraseo de las Ideas Principales.

- En el siglo XVIII se originó la Ingeniería Civil.

- La Ingeniería Mecánica se creó en Inglaterra y Escocia.

3er Párrafo

Optimum: uso inmejorable de los recursos.

Processes: fases de creación.

Behaviour: respuestas por parte de las maquinas.

Ingenious: capacidad de creación.

Knowledge: conocimiento en varias ramas de la ciencia.

Parafrasear ideas principales.

- Aplicar la Ingeniería para el uso de los recursos en pro de la humanidad.

- El Ingeniero crea y el Científico posee el saber.

Activity 3