Engineering?

[Lucky13]

Who was the greatest engineer of the industrial revolution?

[Amsel]

Would inventors count or just people with an engineering degree?

[muller]

[Lucky13]

Why am I not surprised that Isambard Kingdom Brunel popped up?
Was he the greatest though?

[Amsel]

Eli Whitney was maybe one of the most influential.

[Colin1]

Who was the greatest engineer of the industrial revolution?

Why
only from the Industrial Revolution?

[Lucky13]

That was when I was born.... Just what I thought would be interesting mate. We can go further back, if you like...
Any suggestions?

[Colin1]

That was when I was born.... Just what I thought would be interesting mate. We can go further back, if you like...
Any suggestions?

Or further forward
I was thinking of Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the 20th century

[Lucky13]

Todays engineers has it too "easy" mate....

[Amsel]

Engineers, in my business it is a battle between them and the ones who apply the ideas.

[pbfoot]

Or further forward
I was thinking of Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the 20th century

Yep he's the man did a lot of his work on AC in Niagara certainly upset Edison and on the flip side made Westinghouse lots of money

[Colin1]

Yep he's the man did a lot of his work on AC in Niagara certainly upset Edison and on the flip side made Westinghouse lots of money

True
Edison took advantage of both Tesla's engineering brilliance and commercial naivete; while the rest of the world were contemplating the enormous difficulties of dc distribution, it was Tesla who came up with the concept of ac distribution - the national grid.

Tesla was also working on wireless power, his 'power tower' still stands, I believe, in Shoreham on Long Island NY. Once the banks (closely tied to industrial magnates like Edison) realised what Tesla was about to stumble on, they foreclosed on him. For all his brilliance, Tesla departed this world penniless. Imagine it, free power.

Books on Tesla and his work are fiendishly difficult to get hold of, I have one or two and the fact that they're so poorly published is testament to just what a fright he gave the establishment, they just wanted his work to disappear.

[Colin1]

We can go further back, if you like...
Any suggestions?

We don't know for sure who built the Giza pyramids
but that was one serious feat of engineering, with all our heavy plant we still can't build a similar pyramid today. The maths of astronomy that was built into the structures, along with their precision, is astounding.
I think the question of 'who' is as valid as 'how' and as much to the point, 'where' - where did they go? Civil engineering is supposed to get better as a civilisation matures, in Ancient Egypt it got considerably worse.

[Graeme]

Yep he's the man did a lot of his work on AC in Niagara certainly upset Edison and on the flip side made Westinghouse lots of money

An odd title but a good read is "Edison and the Electric Chair." Discusses in detail the bitter rivalry between Edison and Westinghouse based on the type of electric current that was to power the first electric chair. Highly recommend it...

[Screaming Eagle]

Whats the worse thing an engineer can say to you?

"I'm here to help"

Little joke us boilermakers have