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(2014/02/09) Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering
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O Corpo e a Alma do DEC

Tratar do corpo como se ele acabasse amanhã e da alma como se ela durasse até ao infinito...

1. Preliminares

1.1. Evolution of Engineering

1.1.1. Engineering before the scientific revolution

The forerunners of engineers proceeded mainly by trial and error. Yet tinkering combined with imagination

produced many amazing devices. The name “engineer” itself originated in the eleventh century from the La-

tin word ingeniator, used for conceptualisers of ingenious devices such as the Archimidean screw, a clever

device to raise water from a river onto the land by Archimedes (287-212 BCE). Leonardo da Vinci (1452 –

1519) bore the official title of Ingegnere Generale. His notebooks reveal that some Renaissance engineers be-

gan to ask systematically what works and why.

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