Engineer - So define it!

It is often quoted because this is the correct definition of the word. The correct definition of the word Doctor is a person with a medical degree whose job is to treat people who are ill or hurt or a person who has the highest degree from a college or university this is why you do not get Doctors of plumbing or mechanical fitting, you cannot change the definition of a word unless you wish to take up the subject with the Cambridge University Press who define the word. Any one of the people who fall into the category below are engineers because to be an engineer you must meet just one of these criteria,
engineer (PERSON)
noun
1 a person whose job is to design or build machines, engines or electrical equipment, or things such as roads, railways or bridges, using scientific principles:
a civil engineer
a mechanical/structural engineer
a software engineer

2 a person whose job is to repair or control machines, engines or electrical equipment:

3 US an engine driver
 
Has someone else posted between mine and your posting but is invisible to me?

What you reply is not even remotely related to the reply I gave earlier - You quote a definition from a dictionary that is used by the populus to understand how a word or term is used in the English language not what the role actually is.

The dictionary may state that a footballer is someone who participates in the game of football - This would mean David Beckham of Real Madrid and England or *Billy Greene of The Kings Head and Muclington Stanthorpe Sunday Elevens. Both footballers (perhaps) I agree but contextually indifferent to the documented definition in the tomes of wisdom. I agree that they are both entitled to declare they are footballers but then additional entities come into play such as 'professional' and 'National Team' and 'International Standard'. If both offered to coach your Sunday league side for free who would you select to do it and more to the point, why?

To add to your posting there are doctors of plumbing and mechanical engineering thats what Phd after their name means and would be in mechanical engineering and encompass both disciplines. Thats not to say that the holder cannot specialise in either skills.

*Billy Greene of The Kings Head and Muclington Stanthorpe Sunday Elevens is a fictitious name used for reasons of explanation only. If you do exist Billy then thanks for watching.
 
Calm down Charlie boy, I am not debating who is more suited to do a specific role, obviously you would not ask someone unqualified to carry out something which is beyond their means. Your original post was asking to define what is an engineer. To be an engineer is different to being say a chemical engineer or structural engineer. This is what you have the exclusive right to, not a general discriptive term.
 
OK I was getting heated so lets work out a problem that may help us define mindsets.

We'll do it one at a time

I have a clock timer that is twenty four hour - I want to set the timer so as it comes on at 1pm every day for twelve hours then off for twelve hours but it must be every day for the same periods each day - So on and off - Mon to Sun if it goes into the next day then the timer will not activate correctly so how would I do it?
 
Sorry Charlie, been busy earning a crust.

I may be getting this completely a.r.s.e about face as this is my 5th 12hr night shift in a row so am getting a bit cloudy, You have a clock timer that you want to run for 12hrs every day from 1pm but the timer will fail if it is running when the day changes.
How about setting the clock back 13hrs so that the timer starts running at 12am (1pm real time) then stops at 12pm (1 am real time)
 
A huge copper whiskey still is being built and eventually the building to house it would be built around it. The foreman orders the fitter to seal the circular lid on first thing next morning to keep any dust from getting in and contaminating the still and he would be round to check on his work later next day. The foreman catches up with the fitter eating his lunch and says when he arrived at the job ten minutes ago he had heared from the others that the fitter could not fit the lid on this morning it simply didnt fit the size of the opening. Poppycock! says the foreman and fitted it with ease himself.

The fitter suggested he immediately took it off - Why?
 
Sorry whoknows I meant to say that there is not so much a wrong answer to the questions so I am not psychoanalysing you or testing you I want to see how you unravel the problems - Theres one more yet If you dont want to answer them then thats fine too
 
I would assume that the lid did not fit first thing in the morning due to the huge whiskey (probably in Ireland or US due to the e) Still being outside thus susceptible to the drop in temperature over night which would affect the overall size of the hole the lid was to cover. It may have fitted later in the day due to the still warming up and expanding. The lid would need removing again because the same would happen that night resulting in damage to the lid, still or both. The still could also collapse in on itself if the vessel was air tight and the temperature difference between noon and night was great enough.
I worked in a distillery for a few years and found the process quite interesting but was unfortunately more involved in the packing of the finished product.
 
.....The foreman realises that the fitter was right and very smugly sneers that the engineers f*d up - I'll give him a call and gloat over the phone. He calls the engineer and speaking as if he personally fathomed out the enigma, tells the engineer in the most patronising manner that he has screwed up and the engineer replies that he hasn't and under no circumstances must the cover be altered - Why?
 
When I was training as an engineer in the 1960’s, the public view of plumbers was a life form akin to an amoeba. Now every little boy wants to be a plumber and earn an alleged £70k. Thanks largely to corgi and statuary recognition.

Electricians are now to get similar recognition through part P of the building regulations; although some are so short sighted they look the gift horse in the mouth.

Engineers? They had their opportunity in the 1970’s and blew it. The Finneston report proposed statutory recognition to the then labour government. However, the myriad of institutions would have had to amalgamate into one. They refused to do so and would not back Finneston.

In my opinion, engineers deserve their public perception of a bloke with an oily rag.
 
Once the building has been finished the temperature can be regulated so that the lid can be fitted with no worry of damage due to low temperatures or is it that the lid needs to be fitted when the still is hot so that whilst in operation the seals will not fail due to expansion?

One more night then off for 3 weeks.
 
Yeah!

The still is made to fulfill the distillation process and therefore it would be inefficient to utilise it for other less demanding steps of the process so its design would consider the vessel as a whole and that includes the lid which can only be fitted when all the components were at operating temperature and from then on liquids would be preheated and introduced to the still so it would reamin as a whole entity, at the same temperature. The foreman has misunderstoof the vessels use and is trying to assemble a copper vessel not an operational still.

Well done 3/3
 
The mentality required to grasp enginnering concepts remains firmly in the doamin of the 'whole picture'.

Rivetters put in rivets and that is their 'whole picture' so it is easy to understand that they interpret their roles as engineers but zoom out and see a Boeing 777 and then hear them say they are engineers when their rivet is such a tiny fragment of the aircraft when someone is responsible for its design, production, monitoring and final roll out and inspection.

You my friend can understand the whole picture eventhough reasonable arguments are presented along the way to justify why the construction is taking place that is the quality of an engineer.

I saw an engineer balancing a ship's propellor once and he had a laser that was focussed through a hole in the shafts centre along its length to a target at each connecting piece. The light had to be exactly in the centre of the target on each piece to ascertain balance. I asked him why the balance had to be so precise he said that the impact would be detrimental to the ship in vibration ailments to the ships components, the noise component to the paying customers and the quality of the company paying for the vessel and in turn the nessecity of them to hire him as an engineer or indeed to compete in the highly competitive market of cruise shipping.

I didn't need to see his qualifications as he clearly understood the whole picture of what can happen overall if his small part had not been effected correctly and well, integrating both academic skills and personal experience. He now works on supertankers in Japan and has aspired high in to the upper echelons of his profession as he well deserves to do.

Charlie

:)
 
So do you want to do some real engineering then?

If we create a project then we pool reources and equate the outcome. We make a new product - How about it?

Have you got what it takes and I'll tell you what if we are making progress we'll move away and develop the idea off the forum - how about it?
 
Here are some common social ailments that we can think about.

1 - Traffic - Jams/parking/speed control etc.

2 - Superstore shopping - Trollies/checkout conjestion/produce monitoring and storage etc

3 - Construction - Speed of full construction - Methods/materials/fixings etc

4 - Security - locks/property monitoring/remote patrolling/crowd management (sporting events) etc

5 - Leisure - Equipment/method/enhancement etc

Theres just a few wide banded ideas to kick off with think along the lines is it necessary? Affordable? Practical? Needed? Most of all, will it enhance a current situation?
 
Lets start with #1, how about expanding it to anything motoring related which gives us a much wider scope.

I've often wondered about a cheap instant method of heating and cooling a car which can be retro fitted. How about Vortex technology?, produces hot and cold instantly but would have to weigh up the difference between creating and controlling the compressed air versus the readily available electrically generated heating and cooling systems.

Any ideas or comments?
 
Yeah!

VW had a system that drew cold air across the exhaust manifolds exchanging the heat from the manifolds to a heating system. The whole thing was cr@p and took an age to warm up if at all. Compressing air heats it up so what about combining the two factors and consider creating a form of heat extraction system from the exothermics of the engine in a similar way a car heater matrix does now (but inefficiently as it utilises the water system).

The problems that would make this product advantageous is instant heat from a cold start or as close to it as possible and I mean real heat as you would from an electric fire with a blower.

Tell me more of Vortex Technology as I understand it is suction by blowing but have no depth of the concept. Air lifting comes into that category I assume as do some vacuum cleaners (Dyson) - Fill me in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top