Favorite Piece of Engineering

godtabh

I was reminded recently of a trip I took to the Grand Canyon and Hover Dam.



Probably one of my favorite pieces of engineering. The picture doesnt do it justice. Looking over the edge into the depth is unreal and to consider when it was constructed is unbelievable.

Any others?

enda1

In terms of structures, the Pantheon in Rome is difficult to surpass for me.

So ahead of its time in material and design. Incredible longevity and beauty. Just awe inspiring to see the pinnacle of their school of knowledge and design come together in the structure which in many ways remained unsurpassed for 2000 years.

con1982

The Eiffel Tower is an amazing structure and a work of art. The first time I saw it, I was shocked by the immense scale of the tower.

The PETRONAS Towers in Kuala Lampur are also very impressive when you see them in real life. I wasn't particularly a fan before but the building is stunning.

hyde

godtabh wrote: »

I was reminded recently of a trip I took to the Grand Canyon and Hover Dam.



Probably one of my favorite pieces of engineering. The picture doesnt do it justice. Looking over the edge into the depth is unreal and to consider when it was constructed is unbelievable.

Any others?

If you haven't seen the BBC series 'Seven Wonders of the Industrial World', there's an episode on the Hoover dam actually.
I haven't seen that episode yet (it's the last one) but the others are actually great. For instance, the one on the Brooklyn bridge focusses quite a bit on caissons (and caissons disease), which is something I wouldn't have been familiar with, so that was nice (baby stuff for a civil no doubt but all fresh to me).

Also the one on the panama canal outlines how mammoth a task that was. Apparently 22,000 people died in the failed french attempt alone!

Anyways, if any of ye are looking for that series, they don't seem to be on youtube but the usual torrenty sites have them.

As for my favourite, well not sure but one that springs to mind might be the band gap reference. When I learnt about that, I thought it was pretty nifty.

It's a circuit design from the 60s that's still popular. It basically offers a temperature independent voltage reference in a circuit. It gets this temperature independence by basically using two temperature dependencies and designing them so that they cancel out. Nothing too fancy but still, a nice building block that cancels out something undesirable by design.

CatFromHue

I'm not sure if it's engineering or just very novel thinking but the water bottle light bulbs in third world countries has always stuck with me as being fantastic thinking.

In a sunny country where there's a lot of corrugated roofs, if you cut a hole in the roof and fit a water bottle full of water in it, it acts like a light bulb in the room below.

brianwalshcork

The burj khalifa - its mind boggling to look up at

Turbulent Bill

Probably the Boeing 747. Excellent technically, groundbreaking and (in my eyes anyway) beautiful. Revolutionised long haul travel for the masses in a way nothing before or since did.

NIMAN

When I first saw St Peters in the Vatican I was well impressed I can tell you.

Stunning considering when it was made.

Then I watched a documentary one night on the beeb about the dome in Florence, which is bigger still and which the architect didn't even know how he would be able to build it when he said he could to try to win the contract.

EDIT: pyramids as well, always amazed me.

OldMrBrennan83

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