Features editor
On the whole, I’d rather be at Westminster Central Hall. Like many nerds — a label I’ll gladly embrace — I have an abiding interest in quantum physics, and the Central Hall opposite Parliament is where the most exciting discovery in a generation, confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson and the completion of the Standard Model of particle physics, is being announced.
It’s a triumph for engineering as well, although it almost certainly won’t be treated as such. The Large Hadron Collider and its four detectors are the most complex machines in the world; the collider a 27km ring of magnets, chillers, pumps, and optics which marshalls enormous forces to accelerate among the smallest entities in the universe to almost the speed of light; the detectors massive constructions involving materials such as steel, brass from old shell cases, foils of precious metals and crystals clearer than glass but heavier than lead, in caverns under the mountains large enough to swallow a gothic cathedral whole, all dedicated to recreating the conditions that existed for the smallest fraction of a second, over fourteen billion years ago.
And machinery is, of course, the preserve of engineers. When I visisted CERN a few years back, the researchers there were only too pleased to acknowledge the contribution of engineering towards their experiments. In fact, they seemed rather pleased to be asked about what the instruments they were working on were, how they worked, and how they’d been put together, as well as what they hoped to find with them.
I’ve recently been reading a book called The Edge of Physics, by Anil Ananthaswamy, which purports to be about research into dark matter, dark energy, the curvature of space-time and the subatomic world. In fact, it’s mostly about engineering: how to make a perfect 8m mirror and transport it to the top of a remote mountain; how to how to turn crystalline freshwater lakes and a cubic kilometre of ice at the South Pole into neutrino telescopes; how to build an array of radio telescopes in an enormous area of dry scrubland in South Africa. The technology of science depends on engineers; we wouldn’t know most of what we know without them.
Meanwhile, the Royal Academy of Engineering has been handing out its annual awards, also to engineers, recognising more down-to-Earth technology. Its highest prize, the MacRobert Award, went to the team that has designed and built the Range Rover Evoque, which has created jobs at home and sold in the millions abroad. Its highest individual prize, the Prince Phillip Medal, went to Naeem Hussain, a self-effacing civil engineer/architect who has designed some of the world’s most iconic modern bridges, including Stonecutters in Hong Kong and the new Forth Crossing, soon to take shape in Scotland.
Next month, meanwhile, the attention of nerds worldwide will switch from the man-made caverns below Geneva to a small red dot in the night sky, when the Mars Curiosity Rover, the largest and most complex robotic device to ever leave this planet, hopefully touches down after a nerve-racking six minute descent. Once again, it’s engineers who have made this possible.
People sometimes say that engineering’s biggest problem is that it’s perceived as boring. Boring? It’s helping us explore the Solar System, the atomic world, to probe back to the beginnings of time itself, and it builds the flash car that everyone aspires to drive across bridges that join, and even symbolise, nations. How much more excitement could you want?
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I totally agree with the sentiment of this article. Engineering is at the heart of the most exciting discoveries. Shame only that nobody other than engineers appreciate this in the UK. Engineering occupies a B or even C celebrity status in the UK. The general public doesn’t know what engineers do. This is in stark contrast to Germany where engineering enjoys a status on equal footing to doctors and scientists. For a start it would help if more engineering related stories would surface in the press and children are getting exposed to exciting engineering. Public perception of engineers have to change and part of it is to protect the engineering status as it is done in Germany.
Those who say Engineering is “boring” are probably not in possession of a basic enquiring mind. They take all they have and experience on a day to day basis for granted and are also the first to shout when they are not available. Over 18 years ago I had to go to my Son’s school and demand that he has extra lessons in basic maths as, at 14 years of age, he was unable to give me answers to very simple mental adding questions. The school’s curriculum at that time did not require he gained this ability. My intervention saved the day and he became much improved. However, the students and school children of those days are now coming through as adults and most are without the basic grasp of mathematics or reasoning. I see it wherever I go in shops and on the street, there is a determined ignorance with young people and unfortunately the education system has not repaired itself since my outbursts. So what can we expect from the engineering fraternity for the near future? It has to be a limited outlook, which is a real shame and also a threat to the future.
Makes you proud to be an Engineer.
Just think if the powers that be hadn’t let Goldman-Sachs pick up those hundreds of redundant mathematicians and put them to work trying to predict stock market movements.
They could have been employed doing something beneficial like this. Instead, they unwittingly participated in the most destructive research since the Manhattan project. We’ll live with the fallout from their efforts for a long time to come.
Congratulations Stuart, such a well written and motivating article.
I agree completely—completely. In my country (the United States) most people think engineers “drive trains”. Then again, at this point in our short history, we seem to worship mediocrity. That will eventually change but only when we demand change. I would dare you to ask any “person on the street” to name one prominent contributing engineer. They know Tom Cruse. They know Kim Kardacian. They know Usher. Most people can tell you the time and channel for “Dancing with the Stars” but can’t remember the name of our Vice President is. (Then again, why would you want to remember that? Think about who he is!) You get the picture. Engineers have contributed mightily to the value added aspects of all countries; i.e. please see NASA, Hoover Dam, Golden Gate Bridge, Boeing, Airbus, and the Hadron Collider, etc.
The discovery of the Higgs boson is an astounding event which should rightly be celebrated as a triumph of engineering as well as a triumph of science. I was a member of the DESY team in Hamburg which discovered the subatomic gluon particle with similar but smaller scale technology. I am still inspired by the experience I had and to this day use many of the practical and innovative skills in electronics and gases I learnt then in my engineering work. We need to take that message of celebration to the wider world, to schools, to science clubs, and especially to the kids who will do the engineering that will make the discoveries of the future possible.
The sad reality is the general public who have engineers in their workplace commonly see them as doing nothing more than being project / department managers doing little or no engineering. I live in Fort McMurray arguably the oil industry capital of North America, we have thousands of engineers working here doing mundane management and very few doing the “interesting” parts of engineering.
Perhaps it is time to return the mundane jobs to lesser skilled managers and allow the engineers to do what they believed engineering would allow them to do.
I am a physics lecturer (however I am a time served engineer (toolmaker- remember them?- with a doctorate in engineering also) And it is definitive as is is the engineering that brings scientific breakthroughs. It would be nice if the engineers had a good understanding of the particle physics (which I do). AS this would coalesce in the design stage and would save a lot of money on the inception of these projects. Also physicists should have a grasp of engineering limitations (like I do) so they don’t start asking for the impossible. QED (which also stands for quantum=electro=dynamics, by the way) I claim my geek award, cash would be nice.
I totally agree with the comment. The real issue as I see it is that engineers (like myself) are terrible at ‘selling’ what we do. people don’t want physics or math, they want pictures and the strap line. We don’t need to sell the detail (which engineers always, naturally, want to dive in to as the true beauty lies in the detail), we need to sex it up and sell the headline.
Of course the comments made are important, but haven’t you missed the point. Suppose we were , as Engineers, part of a group who did nothing until we were guaranteed payment, ensured that five groups of jumped-up clerks masquerading as professionals (two sets of solicitors and their hangers on, two sets of barristers and theirs and one set of court officials -poachers turned game-keepers) were placed into employment to argue and extend any dispute (infractions of man’s laws) were regulated by a so-called professional body who’s restrictive practices make those of the worst Trades Union and its excesses look almost benign and who have spent most of the past 500 years confirming their absolute right (when they took such over from the clerics) to continue with this farce..I think you get the picture. If we did all that, we would have (because we demanded it!) the status and respect -measured in money -if that is any measure?- we deserve. We prefer to manipulate Nature’s Laws to the benefit of mankind, not man’s laws to the benefit of the highest payer. We look forward with inspiration, not backwards for precedent.
I recall well the period when the Russians’ Sputnik was placed into orbit. The US ‘system’ at least recognised that it was only Engineers who could do the real work to match such, and they were given great power, recognition and reward for doing so. Though I would point out (as one!) that many of the best advances in the application of science and technology achieved in the States was caused by ‘immigrant’ Engineers I know that many of those who really knew what it was about in the US aero and related industries were ex-Europeans Hawker, de Havilland, Fokker, , etc and in my own industry -textiles- I used to say that almost all the really powerful minds were European trained. That is not to detract from the US ability to create, manage and utilize excellent teams and to excel in production, which they do.
I have spent my entire career, not wringing my hands about the injustices I found, but taking the ‘*****’ on: exposing the worst excesses of their nefarious ways. Small wonder I am so unpopular in senior? Establishment circles because I have started to ‘brake’ the longest running gravy-train ever. Is that a simile or an analogy. I am but a simple Engineer and proud of it!
anonymous,
But the Manhattan Project wasn’t run by bankers. As much as engineering interests me, and the high regard I have for good engineers, some of the things they get involved with can match dodgy banking anyday.
Blah, blah, blah…
Heard it all before. Ooh, the Germans respect their engineers…this could be a conversation I heard in 1989 when I left University to start my engineering career. None of the “venerable” institutes has moved this issue forward since – 23 years of failure!
One simple example. When the IEE changed to the IET they bottled the opportunity to make it significant by keeping the wiring regulations the “IEE wiring regulations”. Now no-one outside engineering has any idea what the letters IET represent. We are represented by amateur academics who have enough time and private funding to spend their days wondering why we have no respect instead of being in the real world (that one that engineers have made) earning that respect.
When asked, I describe myself as a Professional Engineer. When then asked to explain the meaning of the “Professional” bit, I reply that unlike a Professional footballer, who gets the title simply by being paid to play, if I get it wrong I can be sent to jail!
Another excellent book on this subject is The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems. (2010), ISBN 978-0-307-27245-4. In this book, Dr. Petrowski examines the partnership between engineering and science. He also highlights the large number of “scientific” breakthroughs that required the invention and constructin of new instruments and labratories to enable the experiments to be conducted.
The Manhattan project: was actually ‘run’ by du Pont: a company that in view of what it was doing, like Oppenheimer and the others did not wish such to be common knowledge.
My employer in the US (who made the machines on which acrylic fibres were processed- which are the start chemistry for carbon fibres!) was a ‘friend’ of du Pont since the 30s. Then its MD, being shown some ‘funny white stringy stuff that this lunatic Caruthers has made and which we do not know what to do with…said ‘it looks a bit like silk to me and knitted the first ever nylon stocking!
Du Pont were very grateful.
I was not born then, but there were Engineers, my colleagues in Turbo as late as the 60s/70s who had been sworn to secrecy about what parts they made for du Pont/Manhattan at that time.
One of the difficulties was that the area where the atomic work was being done (Up-State Tennesee) was really in the boonies. There were just no machine shops or machinists capable of making parts to the tolerances necessary: so one was set-up in Charlotte NC -which through the nascent Douglas Aircraft Co (the airport in Charlotte is still Douglas Field) had an inkling of tolerances- This firm was called Bouligney. Wait for the book!
We shall overcome (probably!)
Mike b
The debate about the status of engineers has been around since the term was invented : read about the Lunar Society which included Watt, Wedgewood and an early Darwin. It is a waste of breath. Those engineers who get themselves into a position of authority should support their junior engineering colleagues, take part in professional institution activities and be confident about what they and our profession has achieved.
It is sad that such as article needs writing at all, but it serves to demonstrate once again that so little appreciation of engineering exists in this country. Just look at the list of bodies, about 34 of them, who are “recognised” as having “Chartered” status.
Michael Bradley is spot on. In my working lifetime (over 50 years as an engineer) I have seen repeated attempts to deal with the issues surrounding professioal engineers in this country, all having suffered the same fate.
Science without engineering is simply truth with no or few particular practicable applications. Engineering without science is doomed for failure. In the long run, engineering has indeed probably done more for science than science has for engineering. This means we are there for nearly all practical purposes.