Mature Fundamentals of Design Common to All Engineering

Engineering is the activity of designing a machine or a factory.  Operating a machine or running a factory is not the act of doing engineering.  Design is the act of doing engineering and it is a creative act.  Dictionary definition of engineering is “the application of science and mathematics by which properties of matter and the sources of energy in nature are made useful to man.” This definition talks about two levels of knowledge: scientific (science and mathematics) and technological (making materials into devices useful to man) knowledge. Scientific knowledge is universal and invariant and talks about what the world is. Technological knowledge is contextual and volatile and talks about what the world should be.

Dictionary definition of machine is “an apparatus for applying mechanical power, consisting of a number of interrelated parts, each having a definite function.” The manufacture of a machine consists in cutting suitably shaped parts and fitting them together so that their joint mechanical action should provide required function. The structure of machines and the working of their structure are thus shaped by man, even while their material and the forces that operate them obey the laws of inanimate nature. In constructing a machine and supplying it with power, we harness the laws of nature at work in its material and in its driving force and make them serve our purpose. This harness is not unbreakable; the structure of the machine, and thus its working, can break down. But this will not affect the forces of inanimate nature on which the operation of the machine relied; it merely releases them from the restriction the machine imposed on them before it broke down.

The machine, as a whole, works under the control of two distinct principles. The higher one is the principle of the machine’s design that harnesses the lower one, which consists in the physical-chemical processes on which the machine relies. The lower one is the foundation where isolated particulars leave indeterminate conditions to be controlled by a higher principle. The higher one is a result of creative activity from which new properties emerge by ways of structuring constitutes of the level below. Upper level properties are emergent in sense that they are not reducible to the lower level principles. The shape of a cup is not reducible to the law of physics. The lower level is the foundation and is independent of the level above. The higher level depends on the level below for its implementation.

Therefore, the fundamentals or the essence of engineering design is a process of creating scientific knowledge (if not already provided) at lower level and then transforms it into technological knowledge at the higher level. The main task of engineers is to apply their scientific knowledge to create their technological knowledge by which the constituents are harnessed and intended utility or functions are implemented. They then optimize these solutions within the requirements and constraints of the project. For example, electronic engineers apply the knowledge of electronic properties of engineering materials to design circuits where the electronic properties of the materials are harnessed or channeled to perform the desired function.

Scientific knowledge is the human’s discovery of “law of nature.” There is definite regularity or order underlying nature for men to discover. Without a consciousness of regularity the idea of natural law is impossible. Indeed, there can be no science without the concept of order in nature, for it is this very order which science seeks. It is the invariant nature of natural laws that gives the principle of design the stability, sustainability and operability. The scientific knowledge and its useful application is the source of theory the practices of a field rely on. Without theory there is no learning. Without theory, there is nothing to revise and nothing to build on. Theory based on science predicts results and anticipates success. Engineering activity without theory, the understanding of law of nature and its useful application, is guesswork rather than scientific work. Guesswork is guided by opinions instead of theory. Practice being decoupled from theory is manifested in all immature fields where opinion based trial and error dominates. The design of a structure or a mechanical device to carry maximum loads or perform a specific function, for instance, is the most precise and economical when scientifically designed while imprecise and wasteful when designed on the basis of “experience.”