요즘 기웃거리고 있는 연구전문 소셜네트워크인 Research gate에서 재미있는 질문을 발견했다.
"What is a major difference among science, engineering and technology?"
다양한 답들이 올라왔는데, 답들이 재밌다.
Michael Dickman (ㅋㅋ 이름이 웃기구만)
Technology : 불은 음식을 조리할때 쓰일 수 있다.
Science : 나무를 연소시키면 열과, 수증기와, 이산화탄소가 발생한다. 이때 발생하는 열은 음식의 단백질을 변성시킨다.
Engineering : 손쉽게 요리를 할 수 있도록 화로와 굴뚝을 만든다.
Robert Baber
Science asks the question, why?
Engineering asks the question, why not?
Technology tries to answer the question, how?
그밖에 다양한 의견들.
debate 중에 새롭게 알게되는 것도 많다
Jeffon Liao
Science: It is to know why. First, It tries to ask question. It is to simplify question, ignoring the relatively umimportant details. It is to continue to find the relative correct answer (but ever can not reach the absolutely correct answer). It normally can not bring profits instantly and directly. It cares about repeatability, does not care about reliablity.
For a top scientist / researcher, it may be more important to at ask good/simple questions rather than find a answers. Innovation is more important than proficency.
Technology: It is to know how. It tries to present feasible solutions for a kinds of application/situation. For example, IC technology can teach you how to make an IC from sands.
Normally, Technology is a combine of several Science research results. For example, while developing IC technology, you shall learn chemistry and physics, you shall research why and how semiconductor can control current, and you shall research how to purify silicon, how to photoengrave, how to make a copper trace on silicon, etc.
Comparing with Research, a valuable Technology shall consider more practical issue, such as cost, timing, skill capability, environment, etc.
Engineering: It is to implement and earn profit. It implement Technologies for a certain products/application. Good Engineering shall take more constraints into account comparing with Technology, such as marketing/custom requirements, project schedule, cost/profit, process, documentation, rule and law, etc. Reliability is extremely important, Engineering shall ensure result matchs 99.9999% expect (6 Sigma).
A good engineer shall be good at implementing existing mature Technology, seldom to use inchoate technology. Proficency is more important than innovation for most Engineering (For some certain areas it is reverted. iPhone is an example).
Engineering implements Technologies, and Technologies are from Science.
Merab Zukhbaia
@Jeffon Liao How do you think, does today technology comes only from science ? I ask this question, because during the history there were developed several technologies like fire, for example, which wasn't the product from science...
Behnido Calida
@ Merab: There are several other examples (like the fire example) perhaps throughout our history about technological knowledge that came about by chance (e.g. as others have referred to as serendipitous discoveries). While I do not discount that possibility, I still believe that our understanding of "fire" was later enhanced as the relevant science was discovered, evolved or matured. Take note that the overlapping systems of processes for both science and technology are dynamic and continuously evolving.
I have my thoughts about science and technology (and later on with engineering) which I can trace back to even more lengthy philosophical debates involving the history of science and knowledge. Over the years, it has become cumbersome to delineate the boundary between science and technology. From my research, the consensus understanding is that science can be further categorized as either basic science and applied science. While it is true that basic science overlaps with applied science, which in turn overlaps with technology, the overlap still does not imply that the concept of science and technology are one and the same. There IS such a thing as basic science(e.g. such as set theory, quantum theory, particle physics, etc.) which until recently have only started to find its own niche of practical application. But the main take away points are that, 1) knowledge from basic science were cultivated for their own sake by people who are yet unable to come up with any definitive practical ideas, and 2) science is a public good whereas technology is (sad but true), to a large extent a private good. The latter being my main distinction between the difference between science and technology.
Now, how do I relate this to the concept of engineering? In my view, science and technology interact,...and in one of the many possible ways of interaction, I would define "engineering" in relation to a formal practice or discipline of deploying certain knowledge, theories, methods and techniques based on a bounded set or configuration of science and technology to solve a given problem. Before the main knowledge flow was typically initiated within the basic sciences and outward to produce technological artifacts. As evidence for these, we see the birth of various engineering disciplines such as chemical,electrical, telecommunications and nuclear engineering among many others. But nowadays, it is quite common as well to find practitioners push for their own engineering disciplines as a result of their common technological practice (to later back track towards the sciences) such as the case of biotechnology, genetic engineering, etc. Either way, engineering refers to the actual practice or deployment of science and technology
Deogratias Nurwaha
"Engineering is quite different from science. Scientists try to understand nature. Engineers try to make things that do not exist in nature. Engineers stress invention. To embody an invention the engineer must put his idea in concrete terms, and design something that people can use. That something can be a device, a gadget, a material, a method, a computing program, an innovative experiment, a new solution to a problem, or an improvement on what is existing. Since a design has to be concrete, it must have its geometry, dimensions, and characteristic numbers. Almost all engineers working on new designs find that they do not have all the needed information. Most often, they are limited by insufficient scientific knowledge. Thus they study mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics. Often they have to add to the sciences relevant to their profession. Thus engineering sciences are born
Matthew Hartline
As per my professor:
scientists make no assumptions.
Engineers state assumptions, then go from there.
James Tadaro
Well, if your Professor is a scientist, and thinks that scientists make no assumptions, he has not examined even his own thought processes. If he is an Engineer, then he is likely trying to provoke, in classic Greek tradition, thoughtful debate among his students.All science begins with someone noticing 'Something' he doesn't understand. The next step is that he creates an hypothesis about what (and why) that 'Something' is, or is doing, or has done, or will do. Thus 'Hypothesis' is simply another word for 'Assumption', dressed up in a suit for its job interview, and which needs to be tested.
Scientists then move on to 'Interview" the candidate 'Hypothesis' , aided by whomever they call upon as experts from other departments. All of this is aimed at Accepting or Rejecting each candidate Hypothesis for a position in their Intellectual Organization.
Regardless of what the Good Professor may claim, ALL Science started with one or more assumptions, which were to then tested.
The Engineer takes each of Science's successful candidates and puts them to work on various projects, and is quietly grateful that he has Scientists to do the boring drudge-work , while he gets to do the really cool, interesting stuff that has never, ever, been done before, and was always considered impossible. Like going to the Stars.
