As I wrote alread here, my goal is to hand out the tools of construction and development, to allow more people to build new products. The origins of this profession goes back a long time, where the profession was reserved for highly educated and wealthy people, that had the time and means to technically solve problems. But with the internet enabling to work from around the globe and the ongoing automatisation freeing men for higher labor, the need for a protected circle diminishes.

The Original Engineer

Wikipedia tells us that the word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare (“to contrive, devise”) and ingenium (“cleverness”). And the field of the engineer is right between scientific discoveries and practical application thereof.

Thus it is the engineer that takes the breathtaking new findings of science and applies practical use to them for the population.

While there are now several different types of engineers, reaching over the complete spectrum of products and product life time stages. The erliest type of engineer may have been the mechanical engineer.

The roots of mechanical engineering reach back to Archimedes(287–212 BC) who besides inventing the archimedic screw, also popularized the expression “Eureka”. 

As he was tasked to find out if the kings crown was made of pure gold, he became delusional and took a bath. As he noticed the water spilling out of the bathtub, he discovered the principle of displacement. 

He reportedly was filled so with joy about his discovery that he jumped naked onto the streets yelling “Eureka”- I found it.

With this way of determining volume he was able to show that the crown had actually a smaller density than pure gold. The jeweler had mixed silver into it.

Numerous famous inventors followed, that it would take several articles to honour them. Thus we will go further into the future, only making a small stop in the middle ages. 

Having Fun in Medival Times

Being an engineer in medival times had its pros: comanding a big group of craftsmen, it was on you to come up with ever new ideas to overcome the obstacles of the enemy.

Many consider the Trebuchet the pinnacle of medival engineering.

Modern engineering

Todays work is separated into its smallest bits to enable efficient specialisation. The job of the medival engineer is split up into different profession: inventor, constructor, technical drawer, production planer, logistician, quality control, desginer and so on.

While this makes the engineer dependent on others, it also offers the opportunity for outsiders to come in and get expertise in a small part of the production process. Gathering knowledge in construction and development allows the engineer to kick loose a cascade from the start, by using optimal leverage of his skills to start a production process and thus creating value.

Time of the engineer

The task of the engineer is to bring scinetific findings into the public by producing new products. This makes him profit directly from more open reseach. Exactly this has increased a lot in the past years, as scientific results get more publicity through the internet and access to them is more and more borderless.  

With all the scientific progress it is for engineers in all fields to bring them into the market. Enough work can be done, that even engineers shall find something to do that never saw the university.