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The Engineering Portal
The steam engine, the major driver in the Industrial Revolution, underscores the importance of engineering in modern history. This beam engine is on display in the Technical University of Madrid.
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application. See glossary of engineering. The term engineering is derived from the Latin ingenium, meaning "cleverness" and ingeniare, meaning "to contrive, devise". (Full article...) Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety and cost. The word engineer (Latin ingeniator) is derived from the Latin words ingeniare ("to contrive, devise") and ingenium ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of an engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice (culminating in a project report or thesis) and passage of engineering board examinations. (Full article...) Featured article - A Halkett boat is a type of lightweight inflatable boat designed by Lt Peter Halkett (1820–1885) during the 1840s. Halkett had long been interested in the difficulties of travelling in the Canadian Arctic, and the problems involved in designing boats light enough to be carried over arduous terrain, but robust enough to be used in extreme weather conditions. Halkett's first design was a collapsible and inflatable boat made of rubber-impregnated cloth. When deflated, the hull of the boat could be worn as a cloak, the oar used as a walking stick, and the sail as an umbrella. This was followed by a two-man craft that was small enough to fit into a knapsack, and when deflated served as a waterproof blanket. Although widely praised by Canadian explorers, Halkett's designs had a limited market, and he was unable to persuade the Royal Navy that they would serve any useful purpose in general naval service. Efforts to market them as platforms for fishing and duck shooting failed, and they were commercially unsuccessful. Only two Halkett boats, that of Orcadian explorer John Rae, and one held in the Hudson's Bay Company Museum Collection at the Manitoba Museum are known to survive today. (Full article...) Did you know -
Selected image -Grinding is an abrasive machining process that uses a grinding wheel as the cutting tool.
Grinding practice is a large and diverse area of manufacturing and toolmaking. It can produce very fine finishes and very accurate dimensions; yet in mass production contexts it can also rough out large volumes of metal quite rapidly. It is usually better suited to the machining of very hard materials than is "regular" machining (that is, cutting larger chips with cutting tools such as tool bits or milling cutters), and until recent decades it was the only practical way to machine such materials as hardened steels. Compared to "regular" machining, it is usually better suited to taking very shallow cuts, such as reducing a shaft’s diameter by half a thousandth of an inch or 12.7 μm.
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 Part of the aqueduct at Birkirkara |
The Wignacourt Aqueduct (Maltese: L-Akwedott ta' Wignacourt) is a 17th-century aqueduct in Malta, which was built by the Order of Saint John to carry water from springs in Dingli and Rabat to the newly built capital city Valletta. The aqueduct was carried through underground pipes and over arched viaducts across depressions in the ground.
The first attempts to build the aqueduct were made by Grand Master Martin Garzez in 1596, but construction was suspended before being continued in 1610. The watercourse was inaugurated five years later on 21 April 1615. Several engineers took part in the project, including Bontadino de Bontadini, Giovanni Attard and Natale Tomasucci. The aqueduct was named after Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, who partially financed its construction. (Full article...)
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The Joralemon Street Tunnel, originally the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, is a pair of tubes carrying the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4 and 5 trains) of the New York City Subway under the East River between Bowling Green Park in Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights in Brooklyn, New York City. The Joralemon Street Tunnel was an extension of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT)'s first subway line from the Bowling Green station in Manhattan to the IRT Eastern Parkway Line in Brooklyn.
The tubes were constructed using the shield method and are each 6,550 feet (2,000 m) long and 15.5 feet (4.7 m) wide. The interiors are lined with cast-iron "rings" formed with concrete. The tubes descend 91 to 95 feet (28 to 29 m) below the mean high water level of the East River, with a maximum gradient of 3.1 percent. During the tunnel's construction, a house at 58 Joralemon Street in Brooklyn was converted into a ventilation building and emergency exit. (Full article...)
The Fizeau–Foucault apparatus is either of two types of instrument historically used to measure the speed of light. The conflation of the two instrument types arises in part because Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault had originally been friends and collaborators. They worked together on such projects as using the Daguerreotype process to take images of the Sun between 1843 and 1845 and characterizing absorption bands in the infrared spectrum of sunlight in 1847.
In 1834, Charles Wheatstone developed a method of using a rapidly rotating mirror to study transient phenomena, and applied this method to measure the velocity of electricity in a wire and the duration of an electric spark. He communicated to François Arago the idea that his method could be adapted to a study of the speed of light. Arago expanded upon Wheatstone's concept in an 1838 publication, emphasizing the possibility that a test of the relative speed of light in air versus water could be used to distinguish between the particle and wave theories of light. (Full article...)
In 1834, Charles Wheatstone developed a method of using a rapidly rotating mirror to study transient phenomena, and applied this method to measure the velocity of electricity in a wire and the duration of an electric spark. He communicated to François Arago the idea that his method could be adapted to a study of the speed of light. Arago expanded upon Wheatstone's concept in an 1838 publication, emphasizing the possibility that a test of the relative speed of light in air versus water could be used to distinguish between the particle and wave theories of light. (Full article...)
 Raymix during a 2018 interview |
Edmundo Gómez Moreno (born 17 February 1991), better known by his stage name Raymix, is a Mexican musician and aerospace engineer. Nicknamed El Rey de la Electrocumbia ("The King of Electrocumbia"), Raymix started his music career in the early 2010s, when he joined a trance project called Light & Wave with two other Mexican musicians. Their song "Feeling the City" was featured on the Armin van Buuren radio show A State of Trance. In 2013, Raymix was invited to work in a NASA educative internship, where he helped to develop a satellite.
Around 2015, Raymix gained popularity thanks to the song "Oye Mujer", a well-known track among tianguis sellers, sonideros, and illegal music distributors. Raymix signed with Universal Music Latin Entertainment and in 2018 he released his debut album Oye Mujer. During the same year, "Oye Mujer" was re-released as a single and also was remixed and launched as a duet with Colombian singer Juanes. The song topped the Billboard Regional Mexican Airplay and Tropical Airplay charts. Additionally, it reached number 6 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart and has been certified 14× multi-platinum (Latin) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Diamond + 2× Platinum by the Asociación Mexicana de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas (AMPROFON). (Full article...)
A Castaing machine, on display at the American Numismatic Association museum.
 Male HDMI connector |
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, to a compatible computer monitor, video projector, digital television, or digital audio device. HDMI is a digital replacement for analog video standards.
HDMI implements the EIA/CEA-861 standards, which define video formats and waveforms, transport of compressed and uncompressed LPCM audio, auxiliary data, and implementations of the VESA EDID. CEA-861 signals carried by HDMI are electrically compatible with the CEA-861 signals used by the Digital Visual Interface (DVI). No signal conversion is necessary, nor is there a loss of video quality when a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is used. The Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) capability allows HDMI devices to control each other when necessary and allows the user to operate multiple devices with one handheld remote control device. (Full article...)
 Joyner analyzing the operation of a wind tunnel turbine at NACA Langley in 1952 |
Kitty O'Brien Joyner (July 11, 1916 – August 16, 1993) was an American electrical engineer with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) upon its replacement of NACA in 1958. She was the first woman to graduate from the University of Virginia's engineering program in 1939, receiving the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award upon graduation. When she was hired by NACA the same year, she became the first woman engineer at the organization, eventually rising to the title Branch Head and managing several of its wind tunnels. Her work contributed to research on aeronautics, supersonic flight, airfoils, and aircraft design standards. (Full article...)
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms. New DNA is obtained by either isolating and copying the genetic material of interest using recombinant DNA methods or by artificially synthesising the DNA. A construct is usually created and used to insert this DNA into the host organism. The first recombinant DNA molecule was made by Paul Berg in 1972 by combining DNA from the monkey virus SV40 with the lambda virus. As well as inserting genes, the process can be used to remove, or "knock out", genes. The new DNA can be inserted randomly, or targeted to a specific part of the genome.
An organism that is generated through genetic engineering is considered to be genetically modified (GM) and the resulting entity is a genetically modified organism (GMO). The first GMO was a bacterium generated by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen in 1973. Rudolf Jaenisch created the first GM animal when he inserted foreign DNA into a mouse in 1974. The first company to focus on genetic engineering, Genentech, was founded in 1976 and started the production of human proteins. Genetically engineered human insulin was produced in 1978 and insulin-producing bacteria were commercialised in 1982. Genetically modified food has been sold since 1994, with the release of the Flavr Savr tomato. The Flavr Savr was engineered to have a longer shelf life, but most current GM crops are modified to increase resistance to insects and herbicides. GloFish, the first GMO designed as a pet, was sold in the United States in December 2003. In 2016 salmon modified with a growth hormone were sold. (Full article...)
An organism that is generated through genetic engineering is considered to be genetically modified (GM) and the resulting entity is a genetically modified organism (GMO). The first GMO was a bacterium generated by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen in 1973. Rudolf Jaenisch created the first GM animal when he inserted foreign DNA into a mouse in 1974. The first company to focus on genetic engineering, Genentech, was founded in 1976 and started the production of human proteins. Genetically engineered human insulin was produced in 1978 and insulin-producing bacteria were commercialised in 1982. Genetically modified food has been sold since 1994, with the release of the Flavr Savr tomato. The Flavr Savr was engineered to have a longer shelf life, but most current GM crops are modified to increase resistance to insects and herbicides. GloFish, the first GMO designed as a pet, was sold in the United States in December 2003. In 2016 salmon modified with a growth hormone were sold. (Full article...)
 "Thin Man" plutonium gun test casings |
"Thin Man" was the code name for a proposed plutonium gun-type nuclear bomb that the United States was developing during the Manhattan Project. Its development was abandoned when it was discovered that the spontaneous fission rate of nuclear reactor-bred plutonium was too high for use in a gun-type design due to the high concentration of the isotope plutonium-240. (Full article...)
General images
The following are images from various Engineering-related articles on Wikipedia.
- Design of a turbine requires collaboration of engineers from many fields, as the system involves mechanical, electro-magnetic and chemical processes. The blades, rotor and stator as well as the steam cycle all need to be carefully designed and optimized. (from Engineering)
- The application of the steam engine allowed coke to be substituted for charcoal in iron making, lowering the cost of iron, which provided engineers with a new material for building bridges. This bridge was made of cast iron, which was soon displaced by less brittle wrought iron as a structural material (from Engineering)
- Jumbo Jet (from Engineering)
- The International Space Station is used to conduct science experiments in space (from Engineering)
- 19th-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel by the launching chains of the SS Great Eastern (from Engineer)
- Genetically engineered mice expressing green fluorescent protein, which glows green under blue light. The central mouse is wild-type. (from Engineering)
- Claude Shannon, PhD 1940 (MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) (from Engineer)
- A computer simulation of high velocity air flow around a Space Shuttle orbiter during re-entry. Solutions to the flow require modelling of the combined effects of fluid flow and the heat equations. (from Engineering)
- A 3 tesla clinical MRI scanner. (from Engineering)
- An engineer receiving his Order of the Engineer ring (from Engineer)
- Radar, GPS, lidar, ... are all combined to provide proper navigation and obstacle avoidance (vehicle developed for 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge) (from Engineering)
- Leonardo da Vinci, seen here in a self-portrait, has been described as the epitome of the artist/engineer. He is also known for his studies on human anatomy and physiology. (from Engineering)
- The Ancient Romans built aqueducts to bring a steady supply of clean and fresh water to cities and towns in the empire. (from Engineering)
- Gustave Eiffel was a French civil engineer. (from Engineer)
- A water-powered mine hoist used for raising ore, ca. 1556 (from Engineering)
- The InSight lander with solar panels deployed in a cleanroom (from Engineering)
- Graphic representation of a minute fraction of the WWW, demonstrating hyperlinks (from Engineering)
- Electric motor (from Engineering)
- A drawing for a steam locomotive. Engineering is applied to design, with emphasis on function and the utilization of mathematics and science. (from Engineering)
- Baltasar Mena Iniesta a Spanish-born Mexican mechanical engineer specialized in Rheology. (from Engineer)
- The solar furnace at Odeillo in the Pyrénées-Orientales in France can reach temperatures up to 3,500 °C (6,330 °F) (from Engineering)
- Hoover Dam (from Engineering)
- Offshore platform, Gulf of Mexico (from Engineering)
- Engineers conferring on prototype design, 1954 (from Engineer)
- Archimedes regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. (from Engineer)
- Relief map of the Citadel of Lille, designed in 1668 by Vauban, the foremost military engineer of his age. (from Engineering)
- The steam engine, the major driver in the Industrial Revolution, underscores the importance of engineering in modern history. This beam engine is on display in the Technical University of Madrid. (from Engineering)
- Engineers, scientists and technicians at work on target positioner inside National Ignition Facility (NIF) target chamber (from Engineering)
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