c. 1500

Civil Engineering

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

Engineers are problem-solvers, and thus their expertise has long been coveted within human societies. To solve the kinds of problems that society asks them to solve (in, for example, transportation, irrigation, or the construction of buildings, roads, and bridges), engineers also have to be polymaths, comfortable with many of the basic principles of physics, mathematics, materials science, earth science, and perhaps even project management. There was apparently no shortage of people with such skills in the ancient world, as evidenced by remarkable engineering achievements like Stonehenge, the Egyptian Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Roman aqueduct system, the cities of the Mayan empire, the Great Wall of China, and many others.

One of the most famous engineers in human history was the fifteenth- to sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci. Widely known not just as an engineer but also as an inventor, artist, mathematician, scientist, historian, architect, and musician, among other vocations, his work as an engineer focused on both military and civilian applications to pragmatic problems, like defending cities, designing new weapons, and building bridges. He was a prolific inventor who also had an imaginative, if not impractical, fascination with machines of all sort, but especially with flying machines. Probably to his frustration, many of the machines that he imagined (like helicopters) were technologically infeasible to manufacture during his lifetime. Like many of the best engineers, his ingenuity outpaced the technology of his time.

Civil engineering has emerged as a critical and highly respected field of expertise for the development of a technologically advanced, sustainable, and global civilization. Like Leonardo, today’s engineers must know a little bit of everything but also be able to focus on solving problems in increasingly specialized subfields. In addition to construction and transportation, modern engineers also focus on and aim for dedicated advanced degrees in materials science, thermal control, software, electronics, power systems, environmental issues, forensics, city planning, water-resource management, security, communications, mechanisms, and dozens of other specialized areas. Military engineering overlaps significantly with these fields, but of course includes additional applications related specifically to defense, advanced weaponry, and other related areas. Engineers continue to be highly valued in a society that has no shortage of problems to solve.

A drawing from around 1480 by Leonardo da Vinci of a design for a lightweight, transportable parabolic swing bridge for military use.