Engineering Tools And Human Progress

By Author: Samantha Dale
Total Articles: 610
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We have come far since the first primate used a stone to sharpen a stick, since the first human wedged a stick under a heavy stone and let it roll down the hillside. Stones gave way to obsidian, which was followed by bronze and iron tools. Engineering tools increase human reach and make the impossible possible. Engineering tools do not necessarily have to be complex to make a positive difference to our lives, and they come in all sizes and shapes.

The first engineering tools extensively used were, perhaps, stone axes and hammers, fashioned into sharp shapes using obsidian. These instruments gave man an unassailable advantage over other animals, made hunting less dangerous, and people with axes and hammers were, presumably, more difficult to defeat than people without. About 5000 years ago, bronze weapons, vessels, razors and tweezers made their appearance, and the age of metal tools began in earnest.

Engineering tools like spindles and looms showed up a little later, and clothes got colorful as people figures out how to create dyes. Spinning wheel, invented during the middle ages, was the biggest technological ...
... advance as far as clothing was concerned, and clothes could be created four times faster using spinning tools attached to wheels. Cooking to benefit from the use of wheels as technology for pottery became available, and man learn to turn earth into vessels and containers. Bronze and iron spits, capable of withstanding heat without burning down like wood, made the process of cooking and boiling water easier, faster and more efficient.

Farming technology is in itself an immense engineering advance, and a number of farming tools, starting with plow and sickle, and culminating in the use of animals with harness (to the present day tractors, airplanes spraying pesticides and countess smaller instruments) solved man’s greatest problem: how to feed himself and his community. Roman aqueducts reduced the importance of timely rains, and farms located far away from the river could produce food at all times of the year. Engineering advances in the form of the axle and wheel technology broke most of the distance barriers that separated human communities, and changed the idea of distance.

Until early eighteenth century, the engineering tools in everyday use were relatively simple; the last two hundred years have seen the development of countless engineering instruments. Today, engineering is not limited to building labor-saving mechanical tools; chemical engineering, biotech engineering, biomedical engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, and many other segments of engineering are chancing our lives constantly.

Every day, starting morning to late in the night, we are constantly benefiting from engineering tools. The alarm clock that wakes you up in the morning is an engineering tool; water gets filled in your water tank up to a level and does not spill out because of precision measurement engineering tools; the paper that you read is printed in a press that is run using several mechanical and computer engineering tools; the tea, coffee, or chocolate that you drink is heated or cooled in a machine utilizing an array of engineering technologies; any mode of transportation you take (even if you walk, it’s on a manmade road!) to transport yourself to the office involves the close working of a number of engineering tools. The whole civilized world is built and run using a number of complex and interrelated engineering tools!

There are a wide variety of engineering tools that do specific jobs. One of them is are micrometers.http://www.toolingonline.com.au/