(A Lesson from IIT is a weekly column by an IIT faculty member on learning, science and technology on campus and beyond. The column appears every Friday)
— Sudipto Mukherjee
The word “machine” comes from an ancient Greek term, meaning a system of connected parts designed to do specific tasks, especially those that challenge human abilities.
Machines are created with a specific sense of purpose. They can help us control energy and make different types of motion possible. Today, machines can handle heavy tasks from shaping car bodies to measuring small movements in the nano-meter range.
Throughout history, people have known about weaving machines and machines powered by wind and water. These machines have contributed to India’s prosperity until around 1400 AD.
After 1400 AD, there were significant advancements in machine development. Crucial to this is the influence of the ideas of a philosopher named Rene Descartes.
His belief: “everybody is a machine”. He reasoned that there is no fundamental difference between machines created by humans and living bodies created by a divine force, when considering the body alone.
Due to this line of reasoning, good minds shifted their focus from studying celestial motions to creating tools that improve human life in terms of food, clothing, and housing by overcoming the unpredictability of nature and individual differences.
This then led to progress in physics and mathematics. Now, we understand equations like F = ma (force equals mass times acceleration). But there are still many things we do not know. For example: we do not know why a piece of toast always falls with the buttered side down. From a distance, mechanical engineering conjures up images of fast motorcycles and sleek cars. The underlying symbolism of this is always financial rewards, intellectual stimulation, and long-term career satisfaction.
The field offers many opportunities for a successful career. One option is starting your own business. However, it is important to remember that if you choose to start a business, you will need to source work, bill, and collect payments. If you are not diligent in all these aspects, your business will not succeed. This is very different from working for a large company.
So, what does it take to become a good mechanical engineer? It is important to have a good relationship with computers early in your career. But as you seek to enhance human abilities and empower society, the first requirement is to have social skills such as interpersonal abilities and empathy.
Mechanical engineering is the right choice if you are passionate about solving physical challenges faced by humans in today’s world. The knowledge needed to provide solutions will come as you progress through a solid mechanical engineering curriculum, starting from identifying needs and ending with delivering the final product.
Many of us know how to tie our shoelaces, but we rarely understand the details of the knot itself. Are flat laces better than round ones?
These are the kind of questions that mechanical engineering can help you answer. The branch of mechanical engineering that encourages asking such questions about everyday activities and delving into the details of current solutions to evolve means that are more efficient is called design. In mechanical design, we focus on the function sought by the user or society rather than the personal expression of the creator. This need for empathy sets mechanical engineers apart from artists, even though both create new forms.
Through training in mechanical engineering, we understand that providing a quality service usually involves more than just one component. It requires assembling parts and coordinating different people and machines across space and time. Teams and coordination within them are needed to execute them. We teach structured methods to efficiently handle one-time activities like projects, or to plan processes for repeatedly delivering a single product. This aspect of mechanical engineering is classically called industrial engineering and is the precursor to programmes in management and business administration. The curriculum obviously includes team-building skills, which will benefit you whether you succeed or face challenges once out in the workforce.
The world of mechanical engineering is not deterministic, meaning it does not operate based on specific occurrences, It works with expected values, such as statistical means and variance.
Mechanical engineering is perhaps the only engineering discipline that sees designing with failure as an integral part of the design process and recognizes that it is inevitable. We use terms like fatigue, wear, and pitting to describe the process of things degrading, and we have structured methods to estimate the useful life of components and plan for replacements.
Designs are rooted in data rather than personal opinions or individual experiences. Theory makes up about 40 per cent of the curriculum, with the rest being more focused on application. It is worth noting that sometimes mechanical components replace failing human joints and organs, although we haven’t yet figured out how to renew them over time like natural biological structures.
In addition to logical thinking, mechanical engineering also values visual thinking. It combines principles from physics and mathematics and allows you to use your mind and get your hands dirty. Computer tools play a big role in visualization and digital representation, although the focus is often on using these tools rather than developing or maintaining them. Mechanical engineering is a good playing field for those who have empathy, an outward-looking mindset, resilience, and some mathematical skills.
Courtesy : The Indian Express