2
A. Ghosh
other branches. In the not-too distant future Mechanical Engineering may look very
different from the present-day picture. It is not possible to forecast technological
inventions and development accurately. Till the 80s, Internet or mobile phones never
appeared even in science fictions, but just after a couple of decades these have become
inseparable entities in our daily lives! However, some ideas about the future scenario
can be formed by studying the present trends of development in various fields. An
effort will be made in this direction, and some ideas about the future of Mechanical
Engineering will be presented in this article.
2 Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
Before proceeding further, it may be worthwhile to have a clear idea of the term
‘Mechanical Engineering’ and to form a concrete idea about what is the scope and
objective of this branch of engineering activity. The term ‘engineering’ originates
from the Latin word ‘ingeniare’ implying ‘to innovate’, ‘to contrive’, ‘to devise’, etc.
such innovations or creations coming from clever manipulation of basic scientific
knowledge. In Latin, ‘ingenium’ means cleverness and ‘engineering’ is expected to
be clever application of basic scientific knowledge for useful service to the mankind.
As an example, one can consider the case of ‘stimulated emission of radiation’ as
discovered by the physicists. In raw form, it has not much application. But through
‘engineering’ one can use this phenomenon of ‘stimulated emission of radiation’
to generate an extremely powerful coherent light beam called ‘LASER’ that can
be applied to many practical tasks. In fact it can be easily demonstrated that the
primary objective of engineering is to accomplish useful tasks by taking the help of
the knowledge created through research in basic science through appropriate clever
and innovative manipulations. The term ‘science’ originates from the Latin word
‘scientia’ meaning ‘knowledge’, ‘knowing’, and ‘creation of new knowledge’. As an
activity ‘engineering’ follows ‘science’. Quite often the term ‘technology’ is mixed
up with ‘engineering’ and very frequently many treat these two to be synonymous.
However, ‘technology’ is the activity that starts after ‘engineering’. The term ‘technology’ comes from the Greek word ‘technologia’ meaning ‘systematic use of craft,
art, etc’. Thus when a strong coherent LASER beam is generated its use for a variety
of tasks like manufacturing, communication, material processing, etc. the activity
goes under the term ‘technology’.
Defining ‘mechanical engineering’ is a more difficult task primarily because of
the enormous width of spectrum of activities under this branch of engineering. The
diversity of the types of tasks accomplished by ‘mechanical engineering’ makes
it difficult to pinpoint the core issue in this branch. This difficulty becomes clear
when one tries to find the definition of ‘mechanical engineering’ in various English
dictionaries as demonstrated below:
According to the Webster dictionary ‘mechanical engineering’ is described as
“A branch of engineering concerned primarily with the generation, transmission and
utilization of heat and mechanical power and with production of tools, machinery and
A. Ghosh
other branches. In the not-too distant future Mechanical Engineering may look very
different from the present-day picture. It is not possible to forecast technological
inventions and development accurately. Till the 80s, Internet or mobile phones never
appeared even in science fictions, but just after a couple of decades these have become
inseparable entities in our daily lives! However, some ideas about the future scenario
can be formed by studying the present trends of development in various fields. An
effort will be made in this direction, and some ideas about the future of Mechanical
Engineering will be presented in this article.
2 Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
Before proceeding further, it may be worthwhile to have a clear idea of the term
‘Mechanical Engineering’ and to form a concrete idea about what is the scope and
objective of this branch of engineering activity. The term ‘engineering’ originates
from the Latin word ‘ingeniare’ implying ‘to innovate’, ‘to contrive’, ‘to devise’, etc.
such innovations or creations coming from clever manipulation of basic scientific
knowledge. In Latin, ‘ingenium’ means cleverness and ‘engineering’ is expected to
be clever application of basic scientific knowledge for useful service to the mankind.
As an example, one can consider the case of ‘stimulated emission of radiation’ as
discovered by the physicists. In raw form, it has not much application. But through
‘engineering’ one can use this phenomenon of ‘stimulated emission of radiation’
to generate an extremely powerful coherent light beam called ‘LASER’ that can
be applied to many practical tasks. In fact it can be easily demonstrated that the
primary objective of engineering is to accomplish useful tasks by taking the help of
the knowledge created through research in basic science through appropriate clever
and innovative manipulations. The term ‘science’ originates from the Latin word
‘scientia’ meaning ‘knowledge’, ‘knowing’, and ‘creation of new knowledge’. As an
activity ‘engineering’ follows ‘science’. Quite often the term ‘technology’ is mixed
up with ‘engineering’ and very frequently many treat these two to be synonymous.
However, ‘technology’ is the activity that starts after ‘engineering’. The term ‘technology’ comes from the Greek word ‘technologia’ meaning ‘systematic use of craft,
art, etc’. Thus when a strong coherent LASER beam is generated its use for a variety
of tasks like manufacturing, communication, material processing, etc. the activity
goes under the term ‘technology’.
Defining ‘mechanical engineering’ is a more difficult task primarily because of
the enormous width of spectrum of activities under this branch of engineering. The
diversity of the types of tasks accomplished by ‘mechanical engineering’ makes
it difficult to pinpoint the core issue in this branch. This difficulty becomes clear
when one tries to find the definition of ‘mechanical engineering’ in various English
dictionaries as demonstrated below:
According to the Webster dictionary ‘mechanical engineering’ is described as
“A branch of engineering concerned primarily with the generation, transmission and
utilization of heat and mechanical power and with production of tools, machinery and