At first glance, engineering and music may seem worlds apart. But when we look closer, the impact of engineering on the music industry cannot be underestimated. In the second part of a series on “Engineering in Pop Culture”, we look at how engineering has influenced music and what happens when their paths cross. Over the years, engineers have altered how music is created, performed, recorded, stored, transmitted, and heard.

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza While there are several pyramids on the Giza Plateau near Cairo, Egypt, the largest is the Great Pyramid of Giza. This pyramid, built circa 2600 BCE, is 146 metres tall with a base of 230 metres. It is made of two million blocks of stone with an average weight of 2.3 metric tonnes. One of the greatest engineering mysteries is how such heavy blocks were built into a pyramid shape thousands of years ago. Cranes as we know them today were certainly not around.

Global water scarcity is a huge problem and one that is not going away soon. In fact, as noted by the United Nations World Water Development Report in 2018, it is an issue that is only going to get bigger, the report stating that nearly 6 billion people will suffer from clean water scarcity by 2050. This shortage is caused by a combination of rising global population (leading to economic development) and a reduction of available water (due to global warming).

Long gone are the days when women were believed to have no place in the workforce. In the United States today, women make up 49% of the college-educated workforce. However, despite this encouraging number, careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) remain severely lacking when it comes to females in the field. Let’s break down why that is, and how it can change.

Although electric vehicles hold just 2.8% of the global market share of vehicle sales, they have the potential to change the world. As people are becoming more conscious of the global climate and how their action affects it, they are starting to scramble to do what they can to minimize their own impact. One way of doing so is to drive an electric vehicle, which produces far fewer emissions than a gasoline-powered vehicle.

As the world belatedly becomes more concerned with climate change and the impact that humans have on the environment, many new career opportunities are popping up. Environmental standards are getting stricter, resource extraction sites are nearing the end of their life cycles and must be cleaned up, the list goes on. Environmental engineers are needed to take these career opportunities to ensure that the human impact on the environment is sustainable. But what exactly is environmental engineering?

Most buildings around the world – residential, commercial or industrial – use a lot of energy during their lifetime, whether for lighting, heating, ventilation systems or plugged-in devices. In fact, buildings use about 40% of global energy, 25% of global water, 40% of global resources, and they emit approximately one third of greenhouse gases.

It is amazing how often engineering concepts (or engineered products) have been incorporated into popular culture. In this blog, we consider the impact of engineering on popular films and vice-versa.

1. Three Mile Island nuclear accident The Three Mile Island nuclear plant is located near Middletown, Pennsylvania. On March 28, 1979, the Unit 2 reactor partially melted down. Although the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island did not result in death, it remains one of the worst engineering failures in American history. Despite the substantial consequences of the accident, it could have been much worse.

For many years, around the world, it has been recognised that there is a skills shortage in engineering; that there simply aren’t enough engineers required to complete large-scale investments of local, national and international importance.

What is pharmaceutical engineering? Pharmaceutical engineering involves the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, including their development and the processes needed to manufacture them. Pharmaceutical engineers are also concerned with analytical and quality control processes, as product efficacy, quality, and safety are vital in this industry.

Smart or intelligent materials are described as materials that can achieve a controlled, predictable, variation in one or more of their properties as a direct response to an external stimuli and/or a change in their environment. The external changes can be fluctuations in temperature, light, pressure, magnetic or electrical fields, surrounding moisture, or chemicals. Not all smart materials are the same. Some can change their properties due to more than one of the external stimuli at the same time, and some materials offer greater adaptability due to certain external changes than others.

What is process engineering? Raw materials are turned into an end product through process engineering. Process engineering is also the design and optimisation of production or throughput processes so that waste is minimized and output is maximized. Process engineering isn’t only limited to production processes. Any process in any field can be optimized. Shipping packages, patient processing in an emergency room, and communication in a chain of command are all examples of non-production processes that can be optimized.

What is process engineering? Raw materials are turned into an end product through process engineering. Process engineering is also the design and optimisation of production or throughput processes so that waste is minimized and output is maximized. Process engineering isn’t only limited to production processes. Any process in any field can be optimized. Shipping packages, patient processing in an emergency room, and communication in a chain of command are all examples of non-production processes that can be optimized.

As we collectively learn the lessons from our handling of a global pandemic, there is an increasing awareness of the need to be prepared for the big issues our planet faces through the 2020s. In particular, what can engineers do to combat some of the known challenges that we will face? Here we look at 3 global and interconnected societal challenges and ask what engineers can do to help solve them. 

Electrical engineers are saddled with a lot of responsibility in today’s world of rapidly advancing technologies.They are tasked with designing, developing, and testing electrical equipment and systems. From smartphones to supercomputers, electrical engineers are deeply involved in every step of the engineering process. But what is electrical engineering?

Machine learning is the ability of an algorithm to learn from data and improve its accuracy over time. It is a concept that is on everyone’s minds in today’s technological, innovative world.

When it comes to engineering, the pulp and paper industry is not one that generally springs to mind. Engineers, however, play an essential role in this industry. Without engineers, the industry could not exist, and the world as we know it would change drastically. What is the pulp and paper industry? Companies in the pulp and paper industry manufacture pulp, paper, paperboard, and other paper products mainly using wood as a feedstock. Rags, flax, cotton linters, sugar cane residues, and used paper can also be used in the manufacturing process.

Technically speaking, corrosion is the gradual destruction of materials by a chemical or electrochemical reaction with their environment. Although it is commonly believed that corrosion is only associated with metals, they are not the only materials susceptible to it. Non-metallic materials, including plastics and glass, can also corrode.

Chemical engineering is one of today’s broadest and most in-demand engineering disciplines. Chemical engineers work in a variety of industries, including energy, mining, chemical production, food production, and water treatment. Because of their diverse skillset and the industries in which they work, chemical engineers are highly sought-after.

2020 was an unprecedented year. The coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to its knees, changing life as we know it. It’s been particularly crippling for the world of engineering. A global economy in recession has forced many companies to rethink their operations. For new engineers, this organizational rethinking has led to fewer career opportunities.

Whether it’s Christmas or an upcoming birthday, gifts are a fantastic way to show another person you care. If you’re lucky enough to have an engineer as your nearest and dearest, or perhaps work with one, then you’ll want to make sure you find a gift that someone with such a curious and logical mind will really appreciate. Any ideas? Fear not. Even though not all engineers specialize in the same field or have the same hobbies, these 10 cool gifts will make (almost) every engineer as happy as a kid on Christmas morning. And remember, kindness if normally reciprocated...

As with any other profession, there are certain stereotypes and myths inherent to the engineering field. Most people perceive engineers in an entirely one-dimensional way, associating certain personality traits (or lack thereof) with them, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. There are quite a few misconceptions on what engineers are or are not, but let’s look at the 10 Most Common Myths About Engineers. 

Civil engineering students study the built environment, specifically how its various structures are designed, constructed, and maintained. A basic understanding of how static objects, such as buildings, behave is required to succeed as a civil engineer.

Engineering and research related professions are undoubtedly some of the most popular in current times, with a significant proportion of our passionate youth opting for these majors in university.