Engineers seldom get praise they deserve from the ordinary man. Interesting stories for young people have been written about famous inventors, doctors, travellers and other notable people, but the names of famous engineers remain largely unknown except to students of technical institutions. This is not because engineers have contributed less than those others to the progress of mankind,but because the details of their achievements are usually too technical to be understood by the ordinary reader. A layman without some knowledgeof technical terms, as well as some knowledge of physics and mathematics, would find it difficult to appreciate fully the greatness I.K Brunel and the other famous engineers who worked on the problem of the early railways-deciding on points like the basic designs of the engine, what weight it should be, the size of the boiler, the best type of rails, whether the sleepers should be wood or metal and whether the railsshould be 7ft. apart( broad gauge) or even less(narrow gauge).
The result is that apart from one or two people like James Watt and George Stephenson, who have been given the credit accorded to inventors, very little popular appreciation has gone to other engineers. Yet so much work has been done on railway development by men like Brunel that they have changed railways from the crude steam locomotives of the early days, which achieved a speed of 12 m.p.h, to the powerful electric loclmotives of today, some of which are capable of exceeding a speed of 140 m.p.h.
Even less known, or rather, less wondered at, are other feats of engineering such as the building of tunnels and bridges. We all know about tunnels, especially the railway tunnels which carry railways through hills, but not many people realise that it is a very difficult task, demanding a lot of thinking on the part of the engineer, to construct a tunnel in exactly the right place, going in exactly the right direction, and so strong tha tere is no danger of tons of earth falling and burying the people using the tunnel. Bridges, which we use practically every day, are better known- so well known that it hardly ever gaze in awe at our own house. Yet the simplest house is atribute to the skill of the engineer. We have come a long way from the mud walls and thatched roofs of the past, to the convenience of the modern house, with its solid walls, heat-resistant roofing, windows of all shapes and sizes, and up-to-date plumbing which gives up pipe-borne water right where we need it- whether at the kitchen sink for cooking and washing up. or in the bathroom and toilet to provide running water for our bath abd the hygienic disposal of waste in the water closet. In fact the modern house is becoming more wonderful every day.
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