Science = questioning and understanding the natural world Engineering = applied Science
I would argue that programming = craft. Not engineering like a civil or structural engineer would understand it.
Science vs. Engineering
51–57 of 57 posts
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#52Science = questioning and understanding the natural world Engineering = applied Science
I would argue that programming = craft. Not engineering like a civil or structural engineer would understand it.
We have the theory[1] to make it robust as civil or structural engineering. We don't use the theory at our own peril.
[1] A good starting point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoare_logic
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#53Could someone parse the following heading for me, please? "Trendy teaching as confusing science for engineering" (I'm not a native English speaker)
"(Trendy teaching) as (confusing (science) for (engineering))"
Better?
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#54Author makes a really good point but I think he presents it in a way that doesn't make it obvious and sets it up as ego stroking "science vs engineering" (which I can already see in the comments). Science on it's own is not robust enough to build models for real-world decision making - things we could consider in the domain of engineering. If a scientific paper finds a correlation between red wine and heart disease t…
Definitely true about science on it's own not being robust enough -- but I think you might be going a bit too far saying that "without a robust model of human metabolism/nutrition we just can't make claims like this". Yes, such a model would be awesome, but since it's not forthcoming any time soon, it is still useful in the meantime to be able to make claims of this nature using other evidence, such as experiments and even statistical studies, as long as we don't take results for 100% truth (although, taking model results for 100% truth would not be a good idea either).
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#55An interesting topic. I agree the two terms are usually imprecisely joined. But I think the author's definition is too binary.
Science and engineering are a continuum. At one end is the theoretical scientist who discovers new knowledge; at the other the engineer who applies knowledge to serve some practical end. But between them lies the applied scientist whose purpose is to extend scientific knowledge to make it valuable to scientists working in other domains. And the process of doing that always involves lots of engineering -- discovering the reproducible limits of a phenomenon or a technique toward achieving some goal. Inevitably then, many applied scientists and engineers share the same job.
For example: Were Salk and Sabin scientists or were they engineers when they refined a method to inoculate against polio? Certainly they were applying science, but what was their principal role: a) discovering new knowledge or b) refining a technique? Once it moves from the petri dish to the human, isn't medicine usually more like engineering than science?
As I see it, at some point the boundary between science vs engineering blurs to an a degree that the difference is negligible.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, this is where I stopped reading because in my opinion the author gets it exactly backwards. Engineers need to build things with safety thresholds. Most devices will probably experience situations where it is accelerating at a greater rate than just that due to gravity. Engineers work in a messy world without controls and try their best to deal with non-ideal scenarios. They live in a world where a cow often…
err... "Only in cases of metrology do engineering devices need precise measures of external factors." actually no Have s look at an IC engine and the tolerances required for an engine to work. Let alone say correctly designing nuclear rectors to handle two phase flow in its cooling loops.
Well, IC manufacturing may be the GP's perfect example.
You can't count on wafers being exactly at the same size, so you build your machinery in a way that precise sizes aren't important, only relative measures within a wafer is.
You can't count on alignment measurements, so you build your machines to use the only alignment invariant available, that is the size of a single wafer (and call it self-aligning).
You can't count on features having any specific size. They vary wildly, in proportions that in any other specialization of engineering would be disastrous. So, you just manufacture them, test after the fact, and throw away the parts that do not comply.
The entire field of IC manufacturing is about how to not need measurements and be resilient to errors.
Also, I don't know much about nuclear reactor design, but I'd be very surprised if they used measurements with several algarisms.
Re: Science vs. Engineering
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
err... "Only in cases of metrology do engineering devices need precise measures of external factors." actually no Have s look at an IC engine and the tolerances required for an engine to work. Let alone say correctly designing nuclear rectors to handle two phase flow in its cooling loops.
Well, IC manufacturing may be the GP's perfect example. You can't count on wafers being exactly at the same size, so you build your machinery in a way that precise sizes aren't important, only relative measures within a wafer is. You can't count on alignment measurements, so you build your machines to use the only alignment invariant available, that is the size of a single wafer (and call it self-aligning). You can't…
I am not sure what your point is? what is "measurements with several algarisms"