There are many civil engineers who are known for their achievements in their subject. In this article, however, we will deal with civil engineers who excelled (also) in other scientific fields. Let's see some notable examples!
Charles Joseph Minard
Did you know that graphical data analysis was pioneered by a 19th century French civil engineer? In addition to his distinguished career building dams, canals and bridges across Europe, Charles Joseph Minard created the first important information graphics, beginning with the study of passenger and freight traffic for use in planning railway networks. During his career he created 51 thematic maps, including time series plots, flow charts, pie charts, and early forms of Sankey diagrams.
Konrad Zuse
What is perhaps not as well known as it should be, is that one of the pioneering computer scientists was a German civil engineer, a graduate of the Technical University of Berlin. Working in almost total intellectual isolation, Konrad Zuse made the first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer named Z3 operational in May 1941. In addition to computer hardware, he also made pioneering contributions to software, designing Plankalkül, the first high-level programming language. Unfortunately for Zuse, Germany never devoted the resources that the United States and the United Kingdom devoted to computers, with the result that his efforts were later surpassed by those in those two countries.
Gustave Eiffel
One of the most legendary civil engineers of all time, Eiffel also made significant contributions to both meteorology and aerodynamics. The creator of the Eiffel Tower and the internal structural elements of the Statue of Liberty investigated the air resistance of surfaces, finding that the air resistance of a body is very closely related to the square of the air speed. He also set up 25 meteorological stations across France, receiving and analyzing meteorological data.
Timothy P. Marshall
A graduate in Civil Engineering from Texas Tech University, Marshall made significant contributions to Meteorology, being on the development team of the Fujita Scale Enhancement Project which produced an Enhanced Fujita Scale to update the original Fujita scale of tornado intensity. He also conducted more than 100 damage surveys of hailstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes.
Herbert Saffir
Besides being an assistant county engineer and working on updating the building code of Dade County, Florida, Saffir co-developed (with meteorologist Robert Simpson) the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale for measuring the intensity of hurricanes.
George Stephenson (left) and Robert Stephenson (right)
Industrial revolution legends George and Robert Stephenson (father and son, respectively) made enormous contributions to both the field of Civil and Mechanical Engineering. George built some of the first railway lines in the UK, as well as some of the first steam engines, and created a pioneering safety lamp for use in the dangerous gaseous atmosphere of mines. Robert, perhaps even surpassing his father's already enormous contribution, designed many major bridges, railway networks and efficient locomotives. He is considered perhaps the greatest engineer of the 19th century.
John Edward Thornycroft
Among the most typical examples of engineers with significant contributions in different fields, Thornycroft among others developed the first coastal motor torpedo boats and launching systems for depth charges. He had the rare privilege of having served as President of both the British Institution of Civil Engineers and the corresponding Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Vladimir Shukhov
Creator of, among other things, innovative methods of analysis for structural engineering, Imperial Moscow Technical School graduate Vladimir Shukhov made important contributions to the chemical industry, by designing an oil cracking plant, an original oil pump and one of the first furnaces that used residual oil.
Although it could be said that these people were outliers, it is clear that the broad and robust mathematical and technical background of civil engineering makes the transition to other scientific or engineering fields possible if one wants to!
York is on the brink of a remarkable transfor...
Luca Curci Architects, collaborating with Tim Fu...
The iconic spire of Copenhagen’s old stock exchan...
A 60-foot-wide and 2 to 5-foot-tall crack was ide...
In our previous article we saw some cases of civi...
A new modular wind turbine design called Airiva W...