ABSTRACT
Mathematics is a vital tool for professional and chartered engineers. It is used in mechanical & manufacturing engineering, in electrical & electronic engineering, in civil & structural engineering, in naval architecture & marine engineering and in aeronautical & rocket engineering. In these various branches of engineering, it is very often much cheaper and safer to design your artefact with the aid of mathematics - rather than through guesswork. ‘Guesswork’ may be reasonably satisfactory if you are designing an exactly similar artefact as one that has already proven satisfactory; however, the classification societies will usually require you to provide the calculations proving that the artefact is safe and sound. Moreover, these calculations may not be readily available to you and you may have to provide fresh calculations, to prove that your artefact is ‘roadworthy’. For example, if you design a tall building or a long bridge by ‘guesswork’, and the building or bridge do not prove to be structurally reliable, it could cost you a fortune to rectify the deficiencies. This cost may dwarf the initial estimate you made to construct these artefacts and cause you to go bankrupt. Thus, without mathematics, the prospective professional or chartered engineer is very severely handicapped.
