Engineering Facts

Check out our interesting engineering facts and get some cool trivia related to amazing structures, famous landmarks and other impressive engineering achievements.

Learn about different types of engineering such as civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical and aerospace while enjoying all the incredible information related to famous bridges, buildings, dams, trains, tunnels and more.

• Engineers solve practical problems by applying mathematical and scientific knowledge.
• The word engineer comes from a Latin word meaning ‘cleverness’.
• Learn about different types of engineering jobs such as civil, mechanical and electrical with our engineering job facts.
• As of 2010, the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE. It reaches an incredible 828 metres (2717 feet) in height. Check out more building facts or our list of the tallest buildings in the world.
• The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest of the Ancient Wonders of the World and the last one that remains largely intact. Enjoy more pyramid facts or learn about the Ancient Egyptian pyramids.
• The building of the Panama Canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was one of the most difficult engineering projects ever. It is estimated that over 25000 workers lost their lives during the long and dangerous project, with most dying from disease and landslides.
• Golf balls have dimples because they help reduce drag, this allows the ball to fly further than a smooth ball would.
• As of 2010, the longest suspension bridge in the world is the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Kobe, Japan. Opened in 1998, it spans an amazing 1991 metres (6529 feet). Check out more interesing bridge facts or our list of the longest bridges in the world.
• Used for water distribution, the Delaware Aqueduct in New York, USA is the longest tunnel in the world (as of 2010). Drilled through solid rock, it reaches a staggering 137 kilometres (85 miles) in length. More tunnel facts.
• The Hoover Dam, built along the Colorado River between 1931 and 1936 reaches 726 feet in height (221 metres). More interesting dam facts.
• High speed passenger trains in China reach speeds of up to 350 kph (220 mph).
• The Titanic was 882 feet (269 metres) long.
• The London Eye in England is the largest Ferris wheel in Europe, standing at a height of 135 metres (442 feet).
• The tallest wind turbine in the world has rotor tips that reach over 200 metres (656 feet) above the ground.
• Branches of engineering include aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil,computer, electrical, environmental, forensic, genetic, mechanical, military,nuclear, reverse, software and structural.

15 Hot New Technologies That Will Change Everything

         The Next Big thing? The memristor, a microscopic component that can "remember" electrical states even when turned off. It's expected to be far cheaper and faster than flash storage. A theoretical concept since 1971, it has now been built in labs and is already starting to revolutionize everything we know about computing, possibly making flash memory, RAM, and even hard drives obsolete within a decade.

The memristor is just one of the incredible technological advances sending shock waves through the world of computing. Other innovations in the works are more down-to-earth, but they also carry watershed significance. From the technologies that finally make paperless offices a reality to those that deliver wireless power, these advances should make your humble PC a far different beast come the turn of the decade.

In the following sections, we outline the basics of 15 upcoming technologies, with predictions on what may come of them. Some are breathing down our necks; some advances are still just out of reach. And all have to be reckoned with.

• Memristor: A Groundbreaking New Circuit
• 32-Core CPUs From Intel and AMD
• Nehalem and Swift Chips Spell the End of Stand-Alone Graphics Boards
• USB 3.0 Speeds Up Performance on External Devices
• Wireless Power Transmission
• 64-Bit Computing Allows for More RAM
• Windows 7: It's Inevitable
• Google's Desktop OS
• Gesture-Based Remote Control
• Radical Simplification Hits the TV Business
• Curtains for DRM
• Use Any Phone on Any Wireless Network
• Your Fingers Do Even More Walking
• Cell Phones Are the New Paper
• Where You At? Ask Your Phone, Not Your Friend
• 25 Years of Predictions

                                                              

30 fun facts about engineering, science and technology

1.      220 million tons of old computers and other technological hardware are trashed in the United States each year.

2.      A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.

3.      According to Moore's Law, microchips double in power every 18 to 24 months.

4.      Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921.

5.      Although the famous first flight at Kitty Hawk took place on December 17, 1903, the secretive Wright Brothers did not demonstrate the technology to the broader public until August 8, 1908.

6.      As of early 2009, there have been 113 space shuttle flights since the program began in 1981.

7.      Bill Clinton's inauguration in January 1997 was the first to be webcast.

8.      Chuck Yeager blasted through the sound barrier at Edwards Air Force Base in 1947.

9.      Einstein received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, the phenomenon by which electrons are knocked out of matter by electromagnetic radiation such as light.

10.   In 1901, the Spanish engineer Leonar do Torres-Quevedo was responsible for the earliest developments in the remote control with his Telekine that was able to do "mechanical movements at a distance."

11.   In their Miyagi, Japan laboratories, beginning in 1924, Professor Hidetsugu Yagi and his assistant, Shintaro Uda, designed and constructed a sensitive and highly-directional antenna using closely-coupled parasitic elements. The antenna, which is effective in the higher-frequency ranges, has been important for radar, television, and amateur radio.

12.   Marie Curie was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes for Science

13.   No one has received more U.S. patents than Thomas Edison – 1,093 to be exact.

14.   On 11 July 1962, France received the first transatlantic transmission of a TV signal from a twin station in Andover, Maine, USA via the TELSTAR satellite.

15.   On 9 June 1906 the Winnipeg Electric Railway Co. transmitted electric power from the Pinawa generating station on the Winnipeg River to the city of Winnipeg at 60,000 volts. It was the first year-round hydroelectric plant in Manitoba and one of the first to be developed in such a cold climate anywhere in the world.

16.   On December 12, 1901, a radio transmission of the Morse code letter 'S' was broadcast from Poldhu, Cornwall, England, using equipment built by John Ambrose Fleming.

17.   One third of the world population has never made a telephone call.

18.   Samuel Morse, the inventor of the Morse code, was a painter as well. One of his portraits is of the first governor of Arkansas and hangs in the governor’s mansion of that state.

19.   Telecommunications satellites, and other satellites that need to maintain their position above a specific place on the earth, must orbit at 35,786 kilometers and travel in the same direction as the earth's rotation.

20.   The circumference of the earth is about 25,000 miles. Its surface area is about 200,000,000 square miles and it weighs 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.

21.   The Ericsson Company first produced cellular phones in 1979.

22.   The first computer mouse was introduced in 1968 by Douglas Engelbart at the Fall Joint Computer Expo in San Francisco.

23.   The first Japanese-language word processor was developed in Tokyo between 1971 and 1978.

24.   The first laser was made in California in 1960.

25.   The first two video games copyrighted in the U.S. were Asteroids and Lunar Lander in 1980.

26.   The Internet is the fastest-growing communications tool ever. It took radio broadcasters 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million, television 13 years, and the Internet just 4 years.

27.   There have been 113 space shuttle flights since the program began in 1981.

28.   Tim Berners-Lee coined the phrase “World Wide Web” in 1990.

29.   U.S. President Bill Clinton's inauguration in January 1997 was the first to be webcast.

30.   Valdemar Poulsen, a Danish engineer, invented an arc converter as a generator of continuous-wave radio signals in 1902.