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What is Engineering and what do Engineers do?

What is Engineering and what do Engineers do?

Answer:

An engineer is a practitioner of the profession of engineeringThe basic purpose of engineering is to conceive, devise, design and provide devices, machines, buildings, structures, systems and processes to safely promote, (meaning improve, sustain, protect or defend) the material living standards of humans Originally engineering existed independently of what we today call science and mathematicsPeople built and constructed things using empirical methods, experience and trial and errorWe would continue to do so today if there were no maths or scienceHowever, science and maths now represent a huge body of structured knowledge, much of which is of great use to the engineer, so much so that modern engineering is now itself a branch of scienceAlthough, in former times, an engineer might have accomplished much without them, the modern definition of an engineer needs to include a close association and affinity with science and mathsBut nevertheless engineering retains its essential independence When this question surfaces, as it does from time-to-time, at least one unthinking goon usually defines the engineer as a problem solver! Despite being true, this definition really doesn't help anyone understand what an engineer isJust about every job includes problem solving - doctors, nurses, bankers, lawyers, car mechanics, road-menders, brick-layers, cleaners, truck drivers, crane operators, housewives, government officials and even prostitutes and politicians all solve problemsName me a job that doesn't - maybe musician, actor or sportsperson? - well they have at least to solve plenty of their own problemsI would put creative innovation and entrepreneurship much higher on the engineer's agenda, notwithstanding that many other professions are also high in these attributes.

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