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We commonly see lists of "best science" both here on PF and elsewhere. I think it is time for a little friendly rivalry from the engineering side.
I arbitrarily chose 100 years as the period. The wheel and Roman aqueducts were great engineering but not much fun for us to talk about because we don't know much about the engineers.
Part 1, best achievements. My nominees are:
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Part 2 is to nominate an individual as the best engineer of the past 100 years.
My nominee is Enrico Fermi (despite the fact that he was trained as a physicist, not as an engineer.) because of his outstanding work on The Manhattan Project. Read about Fermi in "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes.
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What engineering achievements or milestones and which individual would you nominate? Give us a small paragraph on each to explain.
I arbitrarily chose 100 years as the period. The wheel and Roman aqueducts were great engineering but not much fun for us to talk about because we don't know much about the engineers.
Part 1, best achievements. My nominees are:
- Putting a man on The Moon. The most astounding achievement in all of human history. Lots of science of course, but mostly engineering sweat went into making it happen.
- Power grids of the world. By grid, I mean the whole infrastructure to generate, deliver and consume electric power. I'm biased because that was my career. Even without bias, nothing else is even close in delivering benefit for mankind. None of the other advances mentioned in this thread were likely to happen without electric power. [Strictly speaking, grids began 140 years ago, but I'm stretching my own rule.]
- Unmanned space probes. Also those things from Voyager to Cassini and others too numerous to mention by name. Marvelous, admirable engineering.
- The Texas Instruments Speak & Spell. Of course that is a surprise entry. In 1978 I put one of those things in the hands of my sister who is severely impaired developmentally disabled. She loved it so much that it eventually wore out from so much use. She also learned to spell every one of those words. To me, the Speak & Spell is symbolic of the whole idea of affordable digital electronics + software designed to be owned and used by ordinary people, not just technophiles. I view our smartphones and other modern gadgets as symbolic descendants of the Speak & Spell.
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Part 2 is to nominate an individual as the best engineer of the past 100 years.
My nominee is Enrico Fermi (despite the fact that he was trained as a physicist, not as an engineer.) because of his outstanding work on The Manhattan Project. Read about Fermi in "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes.
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What engineering achievements or milestones and which individual would you nominate? Give us a small paragraph on each to explain.