of the
Citadel of Lille, designed in 1668 by
Vauban, the foremost military engineer of his age Engineering has existed since ancient times, when
humans devised inventions such as the
wedge,
lever,
wheel and
pulley, etc. The term
engineering is derived from the word
engineer, which itself dates back to the 14th century when an ''engine'er
(literally, one who builds or operates a siege engine) referred to "a constructor of military engines". In this context, now obsolete, an "engine" referred to a military machine, i.e.
, a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). Notable examples of the obsolete usage which have survived to the present day are military engineering corps, e.g.'', the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The word "engine" itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin (), meaning "innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention." Later, as the design of civilian structures, such as bridges and buildings, matured as a technical discipline, the term
civil engineering The
pyramids in
ancient Egypt,
ziggurats of
Mesopotamia, the
Acropolis and
Parthenon in
Greece, the
Roman aqueducts, The six classic
simple machines were known in the
ancient Near East. The
wedge and the
inclined plane (ramp) were known since
prehistoric times. The
wheel, along with the
wheel and axle mechanism, was invented in
Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the 5th millennium BC. The
lever mechanism first appeared around 5,000 years ago in the
Near East, where it was used in a simple
balance scale, and to move large objects in
Egyptian technology. The lever was also used in the
shadoof water-lifting device, the first
crane machine, which appeared in Mesopotamia BC, The earliest evidence of
pulleys date back to Mesopotamia in the early 2nd millennium BC, and
ancient Egypt during the
Twelfth Dynasty (1991–1802 BC). The
screw, the last of the simple machines to be invented, first appeared in Mesopotamia during the
Neo-Assyrian period (911–609) BC. The earliest civil engineer known by name is
Imhotep. The earliest practical
water-powered machines, the
water wheel and
watermill, first appeared in the
Persian Empire, in what are now Iraq and Iran, by the early 4th century BC.
Kush developed the
Sakia during the 4th century BC, which relied on animal power instead of human energy.
Hafirs were developed as a type of
reservoir in Kush to store and contain water as well as boost irrigation. Kushite ancestors built
speos during the Bronze Age between 3700 and 3250 BC.
Bloomeries and
blast furnaces were also created during the 7th centuries BC in Kush. Wooden plank-built seafaring ships were being engineered and built during the Bronze Age, as evidenced by the
Uluburun shipwreck, dated from around 1300 BCE.
Ancient Greece developed machines in both civilian and military domains, as evidenced by the writings of
Philo of Byzantium and others. The
Antikythera mechanism, an early known mechanical
analog computer, and the mechanical
inventions of
Archimedes, are examples of Greek mechanical engineering. Some of Archimedes' inventions, as well as the Antikythera mechanism, required sophisticated knowledge of
differential gearing or
epicyclic gearing, two key principles in machine theory that helped design the
gear trains of the Industrial Revolution, and are widely used in fields such as
robotics and
automotive engineering. Ancient Chinese, Greek, Roman and
Hunnic armies employed military machines and inventions such as
artillery which was developed by the Greeks around the 4th century BC, the
trireme, the
ballista and the
catapult, the
trebuchet by Chinese circa 6th-5th century BCE.
Middle Ages The earliest practical
wind-powered machines, the
windmill and
wind pump, first appeared in the
Muslim world during the
Islamic Golden Age, in what are now Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, by the 9th century AD. The earliest practical
steam-powered machine was a
steam jack driven by a
steam turbine, described in 1551 by
Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf in
Ottoman Egypt. The
cotton gin was invented in India by the 6th century AD, and the
spinning wheel was invented in the
Islamic world by the early 11th century, both of which were fundamental to the growth of the
cotton industry. The spinning wheel was also a precursor to the
spinning jenny, which was a key development during the early
Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The earliest
programmable machines were developed in the Muslim world. A
music sequencer, a programmable
musical instrument, was the earliest type of programmable machine. The first music sequencer was an automated
flute player invented by the
Banu Musa brothers, described in their
Book of Ingenious Devices, in the 9th century. In 1206, Al-Jazari invented programmable
automata/
robots. He described four
automaton musicians, including drummers operated by a programmable
drum machine, where they could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns. used for raising ore, Germany, Before the development of modern engineering, mathematics was used by artisans and craftsmen, such as
millwrights,
clockmakers, instrument makers and surveyors. Aside from these professions, universities were not believed to have had much practical significance to technology. With the rise of engineering as a
profession in the 18th century, the term became more narrowly applied to fields in which mathematics and science were applied to these ends. Similarly, in addition to military and civil engineering, the fields then known as the
mechanic arts became incorporated into engineering.
Canal building was an important engineering work during the early phases of the
Industrial Revolution.
John Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer and is often regarded as the "father" of civil engineering. He was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of
bridges, canals,
harbors, and
lighthouses. He was also a capable
mechanical engineer and an eminent
physicist. Using a model water wheel, Smeaton conducted experiments for seven years, determining ways to increase efficiency. Smeaton introduced iron axles and gears to water wheels. Iron merchant
Thomas Newcomen, who built the first commercial piston steam engine in 1712, was not known to have any scientific training. These innovations lowered the cost of iron, making
horse railways and iron bridges practical. The
puddling process, patented by
Henry Cort in 1784 produced large scale quantities of wrought iron.
Hot blast, patented by
James Beaumont Neilson in 1828, greatly lowered the amount of fuel needed to smelt iron. With the development of the high pressure steam engine, the power to weight ratio of steam engines made practical steamboats and locomotives possible. New steel making processes, such as the
Bessemer process and the open hearth furnace, ushered in an area of heavy engineering in the late 19th century. One of the most famous engineers of the mid-19th century was
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built railroads, dockyards and steamships. Other engineering luminaries of this period include
Nikola Tesla, prolific inventor of electrical applications;
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the first practical
telephone;
George Stephenson, pioneer of railway transportation; and
Nicolaus Otto, the designer of the first modern
internal combustion engine. The
Industrial Revolution created a demand for machinery with metal parts, which led to the development of several
machine tools. Boring cast iron cylinders with precision was not possible until
John Wilkinson invented his
boring machine, which is considered the first
machine tool. Other machine tools included the
screw cutting lathe,
milling machine,
turret lathe and the
metal planer. Precision machining techniques were developed in the first half of the 19th century. These included the use of gigs to guide the machining tool over the work and fixtures to hold the work in the proper position. Machine tools and machining techniques capable of producing
interchangeable parts lead to
large scale factory production by the late 19th century.
Development of new fields The United States Census of 1850 listed the occupation of "engineer" for the first time with a count of 2,000. There were fewer than 50 engineering graduates in the U.S. before 1865. The first
PhD in engineering (technically,
applied science and engineering) awarded in the United States went to
Josiah Willard Gibbs at
Yale University in 1863; it was also the second PhD awarded in science in the U.S. In 1870 there were a dozen U.S. mechanical engineering graduates, with that number increasing to 43 per year in 1875. In 1890, there were 6,000 engineers in civil,
mining, mechanical and electrical. The foundations of
electrical engineering in the 1800s included the experiments of
Alessandro Volta,
Michael Faraday,
Georg Ohm and others and the invention of the
electric telegraph in 1816 and the
electric motor in 1872. The theoretical work of
James Maxwell (see:
Maxwell's equations) and
Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century gave rise to the field of
electronics. The later inventions of the
vacuum tube and the
transistor further accelerated the development of electronics to such an extent that electrical and electronics engineers currently outnumber their colleagues of any other engineering specialty. Modern materials science evolved directly from
metallurgy, which itself evolved from the use of fire. Important elements of modern materials science were products of the
Space Race; the understanding and engineering of the metallic
alloys, and
silica and
carbon materials, used in building space vehicles enabling the exploration of space. Materials science has driven, and been driven by, the development of revolutionary technologies such as
rubbers,
plastics,
semiconductors, and
biomaterials. in the
Pyrénées-Orientales in
France can reach temperatures up to . Aeronautical engineering deals with
aircraft design process design while
aerospace engineering is a more modern term that expands the reach of the discipline by including
spacecraft design. Its origins can be traced back to the aviation pioneers around the start of the 20th century although the work of
Sir George Cayley has recently been dated as being from the last decade of the 18th century. Early knowledge of aeronautical engineering was largely empirical with some concepts and skills imported from other branches of engineering. Only a
decade after the successful flights by the
Wright brothers, there was extensive development of aeronautical engineering through development of military aircraft that were used in
World War I. Meanwhile, research to provide fundamental background science continued by combining
theoretical physics with experiments. ==Branches of engineering==