The History of Engineering (in exactly 20 minutes)

this video is sponsored by brilliant this is the PESA canoe a 10- foot long canoe that was found in the Netherlands and it is the oldest known boat dating back to roughly 8,000 BC and despite what it looks like it survived longer than the Titanic quite impressive maybe they knew something but boats have been around for thousands of years it wouldn't be until 1783 that humans would take to the skies for the first time and then in 19 1961 we would leave Earth's atmosphere for the first time and then in 2016 we finally got Pokémon

go so let's see all the things that happened in between after the PES canoe over the next several thousand years we got things like irrigation which transformed agriculture the wheel wouldn't be invented until about 4,000 BC originally meant to help with Pottery the pyramids and Stonehenge were being worked on around the same time but actually several other megaliths or stone structures were made during these pre Jesus times as we found in Turkey France Korea and more but one of the most famous architectural constructs obviously still used today is that Arch the arch dates back to

almost 2,000 BC and it was used extensively by the Romans and the most famous structure made by the Romans that originally had 240 arches on it is the Coliseum still to this day the largest Amphitheater in the world the Dome Aqueduct concrete and glass blowing were all also inventions made by or used and perfected by the ancient Romans the pantheon Still Standing today in Rome is the world's largest unreinforced dome most concrete structures today are reinforced meaning they contain wire mesh or rebar to improve tensile strength but the pantheon does not thought that was pretty

cool now here's a question how would you keep something cold or even Frozen for months at a time if you didn't have a refrigerator or freezer well because people back then weren't able to just move to Canada they needed another solution and those were ice houses dating back to about 1780 BC we have found these in several locations including China Iran Greece and Rome and they're basically big Underground Chambers with thick walls that were stuffed with insulation Like Straw or sawdust to maintain a cold temperature and basically all it could do is slow how fast

ice melted they would gather this ice during the winter and then keep it in the ice houses for as long as possible to keep drinks cold or preserve food just like we do now but it wouldn't be until the 1800s that practical refrigerators were invented mostly for industrial use and in 19 193 the first home refrigerator came to market then you know who's stealing our jobs and just needs to go water wheels is what someone probably said in around 300 BC because these allowed us to harness energy from the water and use it for mechanical

purposes by connecting the axle of the wheel to a series of gears and shafts that would crush grain into flour taking away the need for a lot of manual labor and it wouldn't be for another thousand years roughly that the first windmill would be made in Persia also for the purpose of grinding grain and pumping water and speaking of water do you ever just need some but it's too far down in the well well in 234 BC this thing was invented this is the Archimedes screw patent pending one of the first hydraulic machines and they

are still used to this day in irrigation hydr power generation and Wastewater management Archimedes also did a lot he created different systems of poliy he defined the idea of a lever and used that principle to make a weapon that would lift boats out of water and he made a heat ray where apparently he used a series of mirrors to focus sunlight onto enemy ships which would set them on fire now moving on the first digital computer the eniac was invented in 1945 to help calculate artillery firing tables for for the US Army's ballistic research lab

basically tables that would tell you what angle the Fire based on the gun you're using distance from the Target and more but the first analog computer well that dates back to 100 BC known as the anttic mechanism this was an astronomical calculator and with its roughly 37 gears it could track the movement of the Moon the sun possibly the five known planets at the time it could predict eclipes and the phase of the moon decades into the future this device was so Advanced for its time that modern Scholars are still puzzled by how ancient engineers

were capable of creating it and this mechanism was an invention of the ancient Greeks who also made the first catapult the first crane Archimedes and the first alarm clock this thing was actually invented by Plato and essentially water would flow slowly from the top vessel to the one below and after this second vessel was completely full maybe after 8 hours it would quickly be empty to the next vessel this would force air out of a small opening which would make a whistling sound that could wake you up unfortunately there was no snooze button so what's

the point but okay now we're going to make a small jump to 1620 because well a lot happens between then and today so we'll just skip over things like paper compasses mechanical clocks eyeglasses the Great Wall of China and the printing press but those happened before 1620 okay so it's 1620 and boom the first submarine was invented by the Dutch engineer cornelis dreel it used ores to steer and it could take in and expel water to change buoyancy and go up and down as needed fast forward 155 years where an American named David Bushnell designed

a submarine called the turtle to be used during the American Revolution and on September 7th 1776 that submarine became the first submarine to ever be used in war but what really changed the game for transportation among several other fields was the steam engine this was first built in 1698 by Thomas Sav where he said hey if I heat up water I can use that steam to move stuff and just like that we got the steam engine the first application of the steam engine was to pump water out of flooded mines but we eventually ended up

putting this thing on boats locomotives and in textile mills and factories this was known as the Industrial Revolution now James Watt the guy who got the power unit named after him is the most well-known name when it comes to the steam engine but he did not invent it he greatly improved upon it in the 1760s and it was after that that we got the first locomotive the steamboat textile machinery and everything else associated with the Industrial Revolution which we say did not start until James Watt made his improvements for reference before the steamboat Europe to

America was a 6 to 8 we journey by 1838 you can make that journey in about 15 days by Steamboat now the steam engine is an external combustion engine which basically means the thing you burn coal in this case is outside the engine as it has to make the steam first that then moves the Piston the internal combustion engine invented around the 1860s and70s was different in that its fuel or gasoline is burned within the engine and directly contributes to the motion of the Piston the internal combustion engine was arguably just as if not more

influential than the steam engine because it led to cars in 1886 first invented by Carl Benz yes as in mercedesbenz the motorcycle in 1885 the first airplane in 1903 yes that famous wri brothers plane that had an internal combustion engine on it it also led to tractors trucks and buses lawnmowers chainsaws and snowmobiles and it's still the engine used in almost every single form of transportation on Earth today now if it was 1868 and you wanted across the United States then maybe she isn't worth it cuz that would be a six-month Trek by horse in

1869 this was brought down to about one week through the creation of the Transcontinental Railroad this 3,000 km track took about 6 years to make and two companies were actually in charge of constructing the majority of the railroad the Central Pacific Railroad company started in Sacramento and had to build East while the Union Pacific company started near Omaha Nebraska and built going west where they would meet was not predetermined but it happened in Utah and this is the picture of that happening oh and notice we had pictures at this point the first picture taken was

in 1826 called view from the window at L French word it got absolutely no likes and then the first or really oldest surviving video is this right here in 1888 enjoyy it's got a crazy twist ending actually the story behind this does first of all Sarah Whitley seen here dies 10 days after this was filmed of natural causes but the guy behind the camera who also invented it this guy here he disappeared 2 years after this was taken while traveling by Train to Paris his remains were never found and it still remains a mystery to

this day what what happened to him now going to backtrack a little cuz in 1837 the telegraph was invented before that if you wanted to tell your friend something but they lived in another state you'd have to send a letter with the telegraph for the first time ever you could communicate over long distances almost instantaneously although these were not in people's homes like phones would eventually be they had Telegraph offices you would have to go to and these are why Morse code was invented since all that could be sent was electric pulses and then in

1858 we stretched one of these Telegraph wires across the Atlantic Ocean connecting Ireland and New Finland yes 2,000 km of coiled cable was loaded onto a boat that started in New Finland and another 2,000 km were put on another boat that started in Ireland and those boats met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where they would join the cables together I can't even find the nearest Costco without GPS but they did not have just one boat lay the entire cable due to things like the extra weight risk of losing the entire cable versus half

and other stuff and today almost 600 cables run along the ocean floors and these are what make the modern internet possible yeah it's not satellites as many people think satellite internet like starlink is currently about 1% of of internet traffic then the wireless Telegraph or the first radio wouldn't come until 1895 when it was invented by that Marone his first signals could only be sent half a mile by 1901 Marone and his assistant sent a wireless signal across the Atlantic Ocean and in 1912 over 700 lives were saved because luckily there was a wireless Telegraph

made by the Marone company on board the Titanic and it was that wireless Telegraph that sent out the distress signals to nearby ships then in 1878 hydroelectric power was invented when William Armstrong used running water to produce electricity which powered a single lamp in his art gallery now hydroelectric is responsible for powering 177% of the world and it's led to other engineering Marvels like the Hoover damn then one year after the hydroelectric generator in 1879 we got the first practical light bulb now the first electric light was invented over 70 years earlier in 1802 by

humfrey Davy so no Thomas Edison did not invent the electric light and neither did anyone he worked with but Edison did work on improving the design of the light bulb and eventually he helped design the first practical incandescent light bulb the difference Humphrey's invention in 1802 involved electricity jumping through the air known as an electric Arc Where It produced light that was apparently super bright like way too bright for regular use and it might not even last 30 minutes Edison's bulb used a filament or thin wire that would glow when electric current passed through it

and it could last 12200 hours these would be the main light bulbs used until the 1990s but Edison did something else that isn't talked about as much he created the first electric grid he needed a way to actually power these light bulbs in people's homes and thus the Pearl Street Station in New York city became the world's first central power plant in 1882 oh and that power plant used direct current or DC power not alternating but some people were saying alternating current AC was better and could be transmitted further including Nicola Tesla engineers and investors

in Europe actually developed some of the earliest AC systems but in 1890 the arguably first commercial hydroelectric AC power plant was constructed in Colorado oh also Tesla invented the induction motor the Tesla coil the first remote control specifically for a boat and like 300 other things he patented then the first Subway was the London Underground in 18 1963 and the first phone call ever made was in 1876 by Alexander granell to his assistant where he famously said Mr Watson is your girlfriend single but now we need to move on to the next Century okay in

1913 if you wanted to sail from New York to California well enjoy your trip around South America which would take 5 to 8 months but in 1914 the Panama Canal was opened this little shortcut through Panama cut over 12,000 km from the journey and shortened a 5 to 8mon expedition to 2 to 3 weeks they made this canal by blowing up a big chunk of mother earth like they took dynamite and blew up miles of mountains they dug through dense jungle terrain and they had to excavate over 200 million tons of rock and dirt then

after 8 years of work from the French yes this project was originally given to the French led by the guy who made the Suez Canal then another 10 years from the United States who eventually took over this 65 km Canal was finished and this thing is like an elevator for boats pretty crazy now can you guess what one of the biggest drivers of innovation during the 20th century was War what is it good for CEOs tanks were invented during World War I same with unmanned and aircrafts Mobile X-Ray machines and sanitary napkins then World War

II that led to penicillin jet engines the electronic computer radar the nuclear bomb and most importantly the microwave discovered accidentally while working on radar it happened after this guy noticed his snack had melted while working with a magnetron which is a device that emits microwaves which we use for radar systems and in between the Wars in 1927 we got the television which has an interesting David and Goliath story it was Pho Farnsworth who made the first working electronic television in 1927 but he faced several legal battles with the radio Corporation of America RCA a giant

company that claimed farmsworth invention infringe on their patents it would take decades for Farnsworth to receive the recognition he deserved and he also would not let his kids watch any TV while growing up but he made one exception and that was watching the moment that Neil Armstrong and buz Aldren walked on the moon to which he said this has made it all worthwhile he is now known as the father of Television but he only appeared once on the device he invented this is the famous Dr Pho T farnworth who invented electronic television okay now let's

power through the transistor was invented in 1947 this is the key component in integrated circuits and there's billions of them in whatever you are watching this video on and without them we would not have modern cell phones computers TVs digital cameras Medical Imaging devices or the Xbox the first satellite Sputnik was launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union it was just a radio transmitter that could send little beeps and this is what started the space race between the IET Union and the US and while you may know that the US lost the race to get

the first satellite and person into space you might not know they also came in second when it came to landing something on Mars which the Soviet Union did in 1971 lasting only 110 seconds until the Lander stopped working then the laser was built in 1960 and this led to CDs and DVDs barcode scanners Laser Printers fiber optic communication laser eye surgery and a new way to entertain your cat then while we may not have flying cars yet we have made magnetic levitation trains or maglevs and the first one available to the public debuted in 1984

in England but as of today there are only six that are operational three in China two in South Korea and one in Japan and these have reached speeds of 373 mph or about 600 kmph 1977 was was when the first person was scanned by an MRI machine these could be used to find much more than an x-ray could such as brain tumors and neurological conditions spinal cord injuries and soft tissue problems 1984 is actually when the first truly autonomous car started being worked on crisper revolutionized genetic engineering when it was unveiled in 2012 and this

is like a surgical tool for DNA as it can actually edit genes and correct genetic sequences that caused disease and also first released in 2012 was brilliant the sponsor of this video brilliant is where you learn by doing with thousands of interactive lessons in math engineering data analysis programming and AI with a first principles approach this platform helps you build an understanding from the ground up and what I enjoy most about brilliant is their animations and interactive exercises that help you gain a foundational understanding of even the more complex topics not through memorization but through

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