ABSTRACT
Engineering is much more than what engineers do, although the path to understanding it is to understand engineering practice, which is what engineers. Project definition starts with engineers conceiving safe solutions for human needs, often helping clients better understand their needs and solutions in terms of engineering possibilities. Some recent achievements include IT and communications, extending the internet across the planet and into space. Through their work on water supplies, construction, sanitation, and transport, engineers have enabled human populations to grow and occupy almost all the dry land on the planet. Yet the energy needed for billions of people to enjoy 20th-century air conditioning is unimaginable, and we would literally cook the planet. The invention of electric machines in the 19th century naturally resulted in the development of electrical engineering as an engineering discipline in its own right. Even with about 350 engineering disciplines, at the latest count, the work performed by engineers in all disciplines is remarkably similar.
