TABLE OF CONTENTS The progression N( t) ? E( t) ? D( t) ? S( t) ? R( t) represents the core connectivity of engineering. Variations in this connectivity are stimulated by imaginative, pragmatic, and idealistic initiatives from E( t) and S( t) establishing thereby the distinguishing features of the contemporary context of engineering.
The making of ingenious devices is foundationally based on natural materials and phenomena. Attempts to seek an understanding of this physical reality has attracted much thought over the millennia.
One of the early influential philosophers who thought deeply about nature and its manifestations was Aristotle (384 322 BCE) of Greece. He accepted the ancient notion that nature could be viewed as consisting of four essences: earth, water, air, and fire. He then reasoned that by a selected superposition of the experiential qualities of cold, wet, hot, and dry,...
