Astounding Achievements in Engineering Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. This French engineer designed several iron and steel bridges throughout Europe. He also engineered and oversaw construction of a Parisian tower that carries his name. Who is he?

Answer: Gustave Eiffel

Born in Dijon, France in 1832, Eiffel studied at the College of Art and Manufacturing in Paris. He specialized in metal construction. After a history of bridgework around Europe, he helped finish the Statue of Liberty in 1879. In 1887 he started building the Eiffel Tower for the upcoming Exposition in Paris in 1889.

The Eiffel Tower has over 12,000 components and holds 2.5 million rivets. Amazingly, it was not only the biggest construction of its time but also handled wind pressure well. Eiffel studied meteorology until in his death in 1923.

2. Many may know her as the Austrian and American film star in movies of the 1940s such as 'Samson and Delilah'. However, she also helped engineer a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes. That technology would later be used in such things as Wifi and Bluetooth. Who is she?

Answer: Hedy Lamarr

She was born with the name Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna in 1914. She had several movie roles in Austria and Paris before meeting Louis B. Mayer. It was he who urged her to change her name to Hedy Lamarr and to move to Hollywood. She played several roles, most of which were glamorous and mysterious seductresses. Meanwhile, in her spare time, she invented such things as an improved stoplight and a carbonated drink tablet. During WWII, she worked with George Antheil to develop a jam-proof radio guidance system which eventually led to spread-spectrum communication technology.

She died in seclusion in Florida in 2000 and was posthumously inducted into the National Inventor Hall of Fame.

3. The quintessential "Renaissance Man", this Italian engineered drawings and prototypes of such things as flying machines, single span bridges, and a hydraulic pump. He was also a painter (think 'Mona Lisa'), a sculptor, an architect, an inventor, and a draftsman. Who is he?

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci was born in Tuscany, Italy in 1452. At age 14 he apprenticed with Verrocchio and learned much during a decade spent with the painter and goldsmith. Out on his own, he painted scores of works such as 'Mona Lisa', 'The Last Supper', and 'Adoration of the Magi'.

He studied human anatomy and even dissected human corpses to learn more of the skeleton and muscle systems. His famous journals, written in mirror image cursive, cover such topics as art, nature studies, human emotions, rock formations, and war machines. Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519 in Clos Luce, France. According to his wishes, sixty beggars followed his casket.

4. This engineer owned the patent rights to alternating-currency (AC) machinery and helped engineer a hydraulic power plant in New York. A coil named for him was still used in radio technology years after his death in 1943. Who is he?

Answer: Nikola Tesla

Tesla was born in Croatia in 1856. Growing up, he watched his mother invent many small electrical appliances and became fascinated with the subject. At age 28 he moved to the United States and met Thomas Edison. At this time, Edison's DC works were rapidly gaining attention. Tesla and Edison worked together for many months before bitterly parting ways.

In 1887, Tesla's AC patents were bought by Westinghouse and were chosen over Edison's works for the World Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Tesla helped oversee the AC hydroelectric power plant built on Niagara Falls which helped to power Buffalo, NY. Tesla died in 1943, broke and eccentric, but with an ongoing engineering legacy.

5. This engineer is perhaps best known for yelling "Eureka!" while running naked down a street after discovering the principle of buoyancy. However, he also made clear the principles for such devices as the pulley, fulcrum, and lever which are all still used over 2,000 years after his death. Who is he?

Answer: Archimedes

Archimedes was born in 287 BC in Sicily, Italy and went on to study in Alexandria. He formulated the "Principle of Archimedes", also known as the law of buoyancy, which states that any object fully or partially immersed in a fluid will experience an upward force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.

He also contributed greatly to mathematical theorems of the time. While back in Syracuse, Sicily, he made war machines and elaborate defense preparations to protect the city from the Romans. In 212 BC, he was deep in thought and refused to speak to a Roman soldier who was rounding up civilians.

He was struck and killed for this action. He was buried, with honors, under a tombstone depicting a sphere within a cylinder.

6. This engineer was one of the founders of Apple Computers in 1976. He personally engineered the Apple I, which, along with its successors, became a major player in micro-computing. He also developed the first programmable universal remote control. Who is he?

Answer: Steve Wozniak

Wozniak was born in 1950 in San Jose, California and went to school at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he was expelled for hacking into his instructors' computers. He went on to work at Hewlett Packard. During his time there, he completed his engineering degree and met Steve Jobs. Together they started Apple, Inc. and "Woz", as he was known, created the hardware, circuit board, and operating system for the Apple I in 1976.

In 1985, after recovering from a plane crash, he sold his stock and left Apple. With his new venture, CL 9, he developed and brought the first programmable universal remote control to market. Later Wozniak was a remote employee of Apple and a keynote speaker and educator around the world.

7. This British engineer, born in 1813 in Hertfordshire, England, achieved induction into the Fellowship of the Royal Society and was honored with knighthood. His engineering feats and 100 inventions in the field of steel making would stand out in this area for most of the 19th century. Who is he?

Answer: Henry Bessemer

Bessemer was born on a small estate in the village of Charlton, near Hitchin in Hertfordshire, England. Bessemer's first fortune came from an invention of six steam powered machines for making bronze powder which was utilized in the manufacturing of gold paint.

In 1856 he introduced his 'Bessemer Process' to use oxygen in the air blown through molten pig iron to create steel. This lowered the cost of production and let steel replace cast iron. Bessemer also invented over 100 other devices including ordinance, dies for postage stamps, and extruding machines.

He helped establish Sheffield as a key industrial location. He was knighted in 1879 and died in 1896 in London.

8. This Michigan-born engineer was the creator of the Model T automobile. His engineering ideas revolutionized assembly line modes of production. He also was interested in engineered woods and helped develop charcoal briquettes called "Kingsford". Who is he?

Answer: Henry Ford

Since a small child growing up in Michigan in the 1860's, Henry Ford loved to take things apart and put them back together. After apprenticeship and farm work, he went on to be the chief engineer for Edison Illuminating Company. In 1903 he started the Ford Motor Company.

In 1914 he engineered a moving assembly line technique of mass production and also began a wage increase incentive to keep trained employees. This new process greatly improved production and lowered the cost of the car. He also pursued and engineered vertical integration where the supply of a company is owned by the company.

His techniques were so successful that by 1918 half of the cars in America were Model T's. Ford died in 1947 near his Dearborn, Michigan estate.

9. This person was the first woman to get an electrical engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Most of her life was spent working at General Electric and she also engineered the "graphical calculator" to solve electrical power transmission line problems. Who is she?

Answer: Edith Clarke

Edith Clarke was born in 1883 in Maryland and raised her younger siblings after they were orphaned. She studied civil engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison but quickly switched to electrical engineering while working at AT&T. In 1919 she got an Master of Science degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was recognized as being the first woman to do so.

She spent most of her career at General Electric where she supervised the Turbine Engineering Department. During her tenure there, she also invented the graphical calculator. Later, in 1947, she would become the first female electrical engineering professor at University of Texas-Austin.

She won many awards and wrote a book before her death in 1959.

10. This man has five of his engineered aircraft on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. He designed the Voyager, which is the first aircraft to fly around the world without refueling, and SpaceShipOne. He retired in 2011, not to rest, but to work on a hybrid flying car. Who is he?

Answer: Burt Rutan

Rutan was born in Oregon in 1943 and was raised in California. He was an aeronautical engineer who founded Scaled Composites, LLC in 1982. The company went on to become a leader of design and prototyping in the field. Rutan engineered over 300 concepts and 45 of these were built and flown. Voyager went around the world without refueling and SpaceShipOne was the world's first privately built manned spacecraft to reach space. Rutan won many awards and in 2004 was one of "Time" magazine's 'Most Influential People In The World'.

His motto is that "breakthroughs are what defines our species".

Source: Author stephgm67

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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Throughout the centuries, around the globe, there have been amazing engineering feats. Let's meet some of the men and women who were pioneers in this field.

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