Engineering an applied science?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Can someone help me. Engineering is an applied science, no? This is what I though it would be.

I went to two university departments of engineering and looked up the definition there, and those who get engineering degreers take overwhelingly large courseloads of math and sciences. They graduate as a applied science (at least at my school).

Yet, I I was told I was "wrong" and that it's nto an applied science, but an "art" that just uses science and math. That seems ridiculous, especially since the only sources that say it's an art are using the term superficially. But even if it were an art, how does that negate that I said it was an applied science? That's even what the fucking department calls it.

What is artistic about electrical engineering that declassifies it as applied science?

[Isana Kadeb]

Many philosophers of Science feel that science is a craft, an art as well.

[Kuroneko]

But there's no reason that such stretching of the concept prohibits it from being an applied science. Whoever you're conversing with is simply wrong.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

Whoever said that engineering is not an applied science, is blowing a bunch of air. You're using your knowledge in math and physics in order to physically build a model pertaining to whatever construct you're seeking . Sounds like applied science to me.

To go off topic for a bit;
This reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my friends. In one of his classes, his teacher ( some GE class in either history or antropology) had told him that physics was strictly academic both verbally, and on a quiz .

[Surlethe]

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to convince the opposition they're wrong: engineering applies science. Therefore, it is applied science.

[Darth Wong]

Can someone help me. Engineering is an applied science, no? This is what I though it would be.

I went to two university departments of engineering and looked up the definition there, and those who get engineering degreers take overwhelingly large courseloads of math and sciences. They graduate as a applied science (at least at my school).

Yet, I I was told I was "wrong" and that it's nto an applied science, but an "art" that just uses science and math. That seems ridiculous, especially since the only sources that say it's an art are using the term superficially. But even if it were an art, how does that negate that I said it was an applied science? That's even what the fucking department calls it.

What is artistic about electrical engineering that declassifies it as applied science?

If engineering is an art rather than a science, then what are all those fucking equations for? Shits and giggles?

Your friend is an idiot.

[Ariphaos]

If engineering is an art rather than a science, then what are all those fucking equations for? Shits and giggles?

After having a gander at some of the fluid mechanics problems my friends were literally cracking their skulls over, I was sometimes tempted to say yes, their is a god, who torments us by giving us problems like that for just such a reason.

But uh, to expand on other's comments of the OP, we have science, which is researching ways to do stuff. Then we have engineering, which is DOING THAT STUFF. What are the definitions of applied and science in his world anyway?

[AK_Jedi]

There are a lot of people that say that all sorts of sciences are like arts. Most of them mean it in the way that you need to be creative to solve many problems rather than it just being plug and chug equations.

While the above is true in the literal sense, I would never call any hard science "art". Creativity is required in virtually every field, while art is the only field where creativity is one of the only requirements.

[Isana Kadeb]

Can someone help me. Engineering is an applied science, no? This is what I though it would be.

I went to two university departments of engineering and looked up the definition there, and those who get engineering degreers take overwhelingly large courseloads of math and sciences. They graduate as a applied science (at least at my school).

Yet, I I was told I was "wrong" and that it's nto an applied science, but an "art" that just uses science and math. That seems ridiculous, especially since the only sources that say it's an art are using the term superficially. But even if it were an art, how does that negate that I said it was an applied science? That's even what the fucking department calls it.

What is artistic about electrical engineering that declassifies it as applied science?

If engineering is an art rather than a science, then what are all those fucking equations for? Shits and giggles?

Your friend is an idiot.

Must be listening to those postmodrrnist idiots.

[Keevan_Colton]

At my university, engineering is now part of the arts faculty.

[Velthuijsen]

At my university, engineering is now part of the arts faculty.

You are joking, right?

I'm not going to deny you need to be creative from time to time. It's real fun to get a working prototype of what the real smart cookie in the company has been dreaming up but I'm still constrained by math and what is physically possible.

[Darth Wong]

Assuming that Keevan is telling the truth, read between the lines: a well-funded and appreciated engineering department is its own faculty, rather than being bundled into another faculty. If the engineering department at his school is bundled into another faculty, it is obviously undervalued and underfunded, so the choice of which faculty they arbitrarily bundled it into is somewhat beside the point.

[Bounty]

The only part of engineering I would consider a 'art' is architecture, since it combines technology with aesthetics. As for the others - well, there is some beauty in a flawlessly-working machine, but of my university calls it the 'Faculty of Engineering Sciences", that's good enough for me.

[Turin]

The only part of engineering I would consider a 'art' is architecture, since it combines technology with aesthetics.

It is a bit of a blend, but the actual practice of architecture is much more of an art than it can be called any sort of engineering.

Our training is very generalized compared to any of the other folks we work with -- we combine a strong knowledge of the aesthetic/design, programming, construction craft, and legal stuff with just enough working knowledge of the various engineering aspects to act as project managers, coordinating the efforts of many different engineering consultants and contractors into a coherent whole. This also means we're trained to know when to shut up and let the engineers do their job!

In fact, I'm not sure I've ever heard of an architecture program being lumped in with the schools of engineering. It's usually it's own department, with sometimes construction management or graphic/consumer design (depending on the university) lumped in together with it.

So even that bit of "art" in engineering really isn't engineering at all.

[Darth Wong]

Architecture is only "engineering" in the sense that the design of a car body is "engineering". An architecture must work with an engineer to make sure that his design will work, but he is not actually an engineer himself. There is feedback going both ways in this process, but that doesn't make the whole thing into an engineering process any more than sales and engineering are one and the same just because they have to work together.

[brianeyci]

Architecture is not an engineering. I went to an architecture party and the people there were... well at risk at offending the masses, the architecture students dress with clothes so expensive you have to wonder how much they borrowed from mommy or daddy and the engineering students are far more likely to go to class with jeans and a t-shirt ready to work.

Ryerson moved engineering into arts? Well, well, well, more ammo for the Ryerson haters. Hahaha.

[Turin]

Architecture is not an engineering. I went to an architecture party and the people there were... well at risk at offending the masses, the architecture students dress with clothes so expensive you have to wonder how much they borrowed from mommy or daddy and the engineering students are far more likely to go to class with jeans and a t-shirt ready to work.

At the risk of de-railing, I find this rather surprising (having eaten more than my fair share of ramen noodles in college years ago). But I'm also not sure what someone's socioeconomic background has to do with whether or not architecture is engineering, even though I think we're all in agreement it's decidedly not.

[Howedar]

I'm not clear on why the two descriptions have to be mutually exclusive. I do think there is an art to juggling design requirements and making tradeoffs, but that sure as shit doesn't mean that engineering is not fundamentally a form of applied science.

[Darth Wong]

Of course, there are those who claim that science itself is an art form. I really think that the value of some idiot claiming that something is "an art" rather than a science is pretty much nil. He has to show that it is unscientific in order to show that it is not a science, and he hasn't done jack shit to prove this.

[Turin]

I'm not clear on why the two descriptions have to be mutually exclusive. I do think there is an art to juggling design requirements and making tradeoffs, but that sure as shit doesn't mean that engineering is not fundamentally a form of applied science.

It's a matter of semantics probably. There's "an art" to certain aspects of engineer, but that doesn't make it "Art" (with a capital A, if you get my meaning).

[Isana Kadeb]

Of course, there are those who claim that science itself is an art form. I really think that the value of some idiot claiming that something is "an art" rather than a science is pretty much nil. He has to show that it is unscientific in order to show that it is not a science, and he hasn't done jack shit to prove this.

Isn't that kind of circular reasoning?

[General Trelane (Retired)]

Yet, I I was told I was "wrong" and that it's nto an applied science, but an "art" that just uses science and math.

My first question would be to ask what faculty that person was in. Chances are, this is just part of the inter-faculty rivalry that goes on in universities.

When I was in university, the aggies and artsies were constantly trying to denigrate engineers. For the most part, the gears gave better than they got, but the aggies did come up with one good one:

Q: What's an engineer?
A: An artsie with a calculator.

The assertion that engineering is an art rather than an applied science is just more of the same.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

What is an aggie?

[KrauserKrauser]

I would assume Agricultural students, future farmers of the world!

I can see Engineering as "an art" just like coding source code is "an art"

Though engineering as "Art" doesn't make as much sense.

An artist, if good enough at telling lies, could pass off a pile feces as "Art" since "Art" has no measurable requirements that an artist's work need to meet, just what people think about it.

An engineer cannot pass off a pile of shit as a "Bridge" if it does not perform to contraints that a "Bridge" with people being able to walk over it without it collapsing, etc. There are measurable requirements inherint to an Engineer's work, like load capacity, etc not just "Does it look good?"

[Darth Servo]

Yet, I I was told I was "wrong" and that it's nto an applied science, but an "art" that just uses science and math.

Tell your buddy that this is a self-contradictory statement. I have yet to see ANY art that uses math and science. Art is usually about asthetic value and thats not exactly something you can put into an equation.

If something "uses" science, then its based on science. This isn't rocket science (pardon the pun).