Monday, February 28, 2011

What is Electrical Engineering?

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that deals generally with the analysis and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field was first an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and power supply. It now covers a number of sub-themes including energy, electronics, control engineering, signal processing and telecommunications.

Electrical Engineering Electrical Engineering can. If a distinction is made, usually outside the United States, the electrical engineering as the problems with large electrical systems such as powertrain and engine control them, while electrical engineering is concerned with the study of small electronic systems deal including computers and integrated circuits. Alternatively, electrical engineers are usually transferred with the help of electricity and energy, while electronics engineers concerned concerned with using electricity, information is processed. In recent times become blurred the distinction by the growth of power electronics.

History

Main article: History of Electrical Engineering
The discoveries of Michael Faraday were the basis of the electric motor technology.

Electricity is a subject of scientific interest since at least the early 17th Century. The first electrical engineer was probably William Gilbert who designed the versorium: a device that detected the presence of statically charged objects. He was also the first to draw a clear distinction between magnetism and static electricity and credited with establishing the term electricity. In 1775, Alessandro Volta invented Electrophorus scientific experiments, a device that generates a static electric charge, and by 1800 Volta developed the voltaic pile, a forerunner of the electric battery .

However, it was not until the 19th Century that research began to delve into the topic. Notable developments in this century include the work of Georg Ohm, which quantifies in 1827, the ratio between the electric current and potential difference in a conductor, Michael Faraday, the discoverer of electromagnetic induction in 1831, and James Clerk Maxwell, who in 1873 published a unified theory of electricity and magnetism in his treatise Electricity and Magnetism.
Thomas Edison built the world's first large-scale electrical supply network.

In these years, the study of electricity largely as a branch of physics. Only at the end of the 19th Century that the universities that offer degree courses started in electrical engineering. The Technical University of Darmstadt, founded the first chair and the first faculty of electrical engineering worldwide in 1882. In the same year, under Professor Charles Cross, began the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers the first option in a Department of Electrical Engineering Physics . In 1883 Darmstadt University of Technology and Cornell University introduced the world's first degrees in electrical engineering and in 1885 the University College London founded the first Department of Electrical Engineering in the United Kingdom. The University of Missouri later became the first faculty of electrical engineering in the United States in 1886 .

Nikola Tesla Long-distance electrical transmission networks possible.

During this period, the work increased dramatically in the field of electrical engineering. In 1882, Edison switched on the world's first large-scale electrical supply network that provided 110 volts direct current to fifty-nine customers in Lower Manhattan is available. In 1884 Sir Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine, which now generates about 80 percent of electric energy in the world with a variety of heat sources. In 1887 Nikola Tesla filed a number of known patents related to a competing form of power distribution as alternating current. In the following years a bitter rivalry between Tesla and Edison, as the "war of currents', and took over the preferred method of distribution. AC eventually replaced DC for generation and power distribution to the enormous range and improving the safety and efficiency of power distribution.

The efforts of the two has a lot to work on electrical engineering-Tesla induction motors and polyphase systems influenced the field for years to come, while Edison proved to work telegraphy and his development of the stock ticker lucrative for his company, which ultimately was General Electric. But by the end of the 19th Century, other key figures in the progress of electrical engineering is beginning to emerge.

Modern developments

During the development of radio, contributed many scientists and inventors, radio engineering and electronics. In his classic UHF experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz transmitted (via a spark gap transmitter) and detected radio waves using electrical equipment. In 1895 Nikola Tesla was able to detect signals from the transmissions of his New York lab at West Point (a distance of 80.4 km / 49.95 miles). In 1897, Karl Ferdinand Braun introduced the cathode ray tube as part of an oscilloscope, a crucial enabling technology for electronic television. John Fleming invented the first radio tube, the diode, in 1904. Two years later, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed the amplifier tube, called the triode. In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi promoted the art of Hertz's wireless methods. Early on he radio signals over a distance of one and a half miles. In December 1901 he sent radio waves, which were not affected by the curvature of the earth. Marconi later transmitted the wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2,100 miles (3400 km). In 1920 Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave in 1946, Percy Spencer of the oven. In 1934 the British military on track radar (which also uses the magnetron) under the direction of making Dr. Wimperis began, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936 .

In 1941 Konrad Zuse presented the Z3, the world's first fully functional, programmable computer. In 1946, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) by John Eckert and John Mauchly Presper followed in the early computing era. The computing power of machines allowed engineers to develop entirely new technologies and achieve new goals, including the Apollo missions of NASA and the moon landing.

The invention of the transistor in 1947, opened by William B. Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain the door for more compact devices and led to the development of the integrated circuit in 1958 by Jack Kilby and independently in 1959 by Robert Noyce . Beginning in 1968, Ted Hoff invented and a team at Intel's first commercial microprocessor, which announced the personal computer. The Intel 4004 was released a 4-bit processor in 1971, but in 1973 the Intel 8080, an 8-bit processor, made the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, possible.

Education:

Main article: Education and Training Electrical and Electronics Engineers

Electrical engineers typically possess an academic degree with an emphasis on electrical engineering. The length of study for such a level is completed usually four or five years and the final will be designated as Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Technology or Bachelor of Applied Science in function of the university. The degree usually includes units for physics, mathematics, computer science, project management and special topics in electrical engineering. Initially such topics cover most, if not all, of the disciplines of electrical engineering. Students then select one or more sub-disciplines towards the end of study to specialize.

Some electrical engineers also the possibility of further study as a Master of Engineering / Master of Science (M. Eng. / M.Sc.), A Master of Engineering Management, a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in pursuing engineering, an Engineering Doctorate (Eng.D.), or an engineering degree. The Master and Engineer's degree may consist of either research, study or a mixture of both. The Doctor of Philosophy and Engineering Doctorate degrees consist of a significant research component and are often seen as the entry point into the science. In the United Kingdom and several other European countries, the Master of Engineering is often considered an undergraduate degree of slightly longer duration than the Bachelor of Engineering.

Source:wikipedia.org

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