Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate the great contribution of Engineering to the progress of science and technology throughout human history. Engineering and the Engineer have existed since the most remote times. It can be said that Engineering and Engineer have existed since the appearance of man on the face of the Earth. If we understand Engineering as the art of using technique to accomplish what the human imagination conceives, we will see that, as long as humanity exists, Engineering will be present. Engineering, understood as the art of making, consists of applying scientific and empirical knowledge to the creation of structures, processes and devices, which are used to convert natural resources into adequate forms to meet human needs.
Engineering is synonymous with technical progress. Engineering has been used throughout human history as a means to achieve better living conditions for society in all countries of the world and also for military purposes. Engineering is the means through which people can acquire conditions to live better, transport themselves more quickly, communicate more extensively and quickly, acquire comfort and safety, have access to more nutritious and healthy foods, etc. The proper functioning of Engineering, therefore, is not only of interest to professionals and entrepreneurs in the sector. It is of interest to the whole society, being also synonymous with development. Since the dawn of humanity, many people have taken care of various tasks that today are attributions of the engineer who carried out countless and magnificent works of Antiquity Engineering, such as the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Acropolis and the Parthenon in Athens, the ancient Roman aqueducts, the Appian Way, the Coliseum in Rome, Teotihuacán in Mexico, the Pyramids of the Mayans, Incas and Aztecs and the Great Wall of China, among many other works.
The first engineer was probably Imhotep who designed and supervised the construction of the Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, a step pyramid at Saqqara, around 2630 BC-2611 BC. From Antiquity to the 15th century, engineering works were much more the result of empiricism and intuition than of calculation and true engineering. Scientific inquiry, including the physical and mathematical sciences, was almost mere speculation, often not aimed at practical applications. There was, at most, some application for military purposes. Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo Galilei, in the 15th and 17th centuries, for example, can be considered the precursors of science-based engineering because what they did was governed by physical and mathematical laws.
In the history of science, the Scientific Revolution is the period that began in the 16th century with the Renaissance and lasted until the 18th century with the Industrial Revolution. From that period on, Science, which until then was linked to Philosophy, separates itself from it and becomes a more structured and practical knowledge. The Renaissance brought as one of its characteristics the use of a higher critical sense and a greater attention to human needs that allowed man to observe natural phenomena more attentively instead of denying them to the interpretation of the Catholic Church that dictated its thinking during the Middle Ages. Significant events of the Scientific Revolution, at the beginning of the 16th century, were the publication of the works “On the revolutions of the celestial spheres” by Nicolaus Copernicus and “On the Organization of the Human Body” by Andreas Vesalius. The publication of the “Dialogue on the two main systems of the world” by Galileo Galilei and the enunciation of Kepler’s Laws decisively boosted the Scientific Revolution.
With the Scientific Revolution, the goals of the man of science and of science itself were redirected to an era free from the mystical influences of the Middle Ages. Since the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, approximately four centuries ago, the exercise of Engineering has evolved rapidly with the increasing simultaneous use of knowledge obtained in the most diverse areas of scientific activities. The birth of modern engineering was the consequence of two great events that took place in the history of humanity in the 18th century: the Industrial Revolution in England and the philosophical and cultural movement called Enlightenment in France. As the mathematical and physical sciences developed, Engineering was structured, but only in the 18th century was it possible to arrive at a systematic and ordered set of doctrines, which constituted the first theoretical basis of Engineering.
Modern engineering is characterized by the generalized application of scientific knowledge to the solution of problems, dedicating itself, basically, to problems of the same kind as the engineering of the past, however, with the distinct and outstanding characteristic that is the application of science. It is known that Engineering is present in the entire productive sector, namely: in factories, in housing and infrastructure construction sites, in universities, in scientific laboratories, in technological research centers, in transport, in energy generation, in communications, food production, among other undertakings. The great changes that have been taking place in people’s lives in the modern world were generated by technology that is fueled by accumulated knowledge and large investments in research and innovation. Humanity needs Engineering because it transforms the knowledge accumulated in universities and research centers, public and private, into products and services available to society.
The transformation of knowledge produced in laboratories by professionals from various areas, including engineers, is up to engineers to design and carry out. It is not by chance that in all engineering definitions, and there are many, we find the words “practical application of scientific principles aimed at transforming nature with economy of resources”. The human being currently has at his disposal products that knowledge and technology combine in a way never achieved before. The future now points to Genetic Engineering, which, associated with information technology, offers an enormous possibility of contributing to the solution of the problem of hunger in the world. Instant global communications, new chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the intensification of consumption and production of energy and transport, the increase in agricultural productivity, the incredible technological cooperation added to medicine, are glaring examples of this scientific and technological revolution.
Nowadays, there are countless undertakings in the world that have had and count on the decisive support of Engineering, such as the gigantic hydroelectric plants of Three Gorges in China and Itaipu in Brazil/Paraguay, buildings such as the Empire State Building in New York, the Capital Gate in city of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and the Kingdom Tower built in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which has 275 floors, reaching the incredible mark of 1,600 meters in height, bridges as the longest in the world over the sea of 36.48 kilometers built in the coastal city of Qingdao in China and Rio-Niterói in Brazil, large football stadiums, shopping malls, airports, railways, highways and viaducts, transatlantic ships, supertankers and super bulk carriers, jet planes, rockets and spaceships, among others.
Engineering must be understood, therefore, as a culture, open to society, active in promoting its development, seeking the best quality of life as its purpose. As technological development fundamentally depends on engineering capacity, it can be said that education, science, engineering and technology are closely related. Engineers are most responsible for realizing the innovations generated by science and technology. Engineering is strategic for the progress of humanity.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 82, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019) and A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021) .
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