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Technical training

One names technical training the whole of the means implemented to lead to his term a technical project.

If our time is resolutely technician, it does not return therefore honor to the technical not strictly scientific, in general in empirical or experimental matter. However the history teaches us that the daily professional practice, of the Artisan like Engineer, is often source of creativity.

Thus, within IBM, it was noted that almost half of the suggestions collated and rewarded by large the program for suggestions for this company came from the factories.

This article thus develops, from the historical point of view, the methods of the technical Connaissance:

• origin and emergence,
• transmission,
• principles of formalization,

and that which they are elementary techniques (ex: " to make Jam " ) or more elaborate (ex: " to conceive the architecture of the frame of a motor vehicle of compétition" ).

Concept of knowledge technical

Knowledge

In the Théétète, Plato defines the Connaissance like a justified true belief . This traditional definition contains several ideas likely to specify the concept:

• an idea of base , something which makes reliable this belief, of understandable bond , explanation

• an idea of truth , reliability , and for which the Reproductibilité is demonstration because likely to check this rationality
• finally the idea even of Croyance i.e. which is about the falseness and which it is necessary to treat to determine the relationship with the object

For Michel Maffesoli, knowledge is function of the objects to which it is referred: there thus exists des connaissances particulières which is different by it to what they apply

The contextualist S clarify the historicity of knowledge with what the product, the Motivation S and interests concerned, history social and political in which it is built. Knowledge is thus subjected to a mode of historical validation relative to a given time and a place, and from which the research of the invariants and anthropological constants aims at being freed.

Finally knowledge differs from the To know because it is sullied with Empirisme, it is tinted of Pragmatisme and thus fallible , it integrates elements which the scientific knowledge sees with suspicion. It comprises elements given (empiricism) and built elements, whole with a generally collective i.e. shared dimension.

A subjacent motivation

The action technician extrinsèquement is extrinsèquement justified because it is practiced either for obtaining a positive consequence (increase in the power, speed, comfort, objects allowing the nomadism…), that is to say for the avoidance of a negative consequence (reduction in the painfulness of a task, consumption of energy,…), and not for its only contents.

At the beginning, the Technicien is carrying an intention, a project, a teleological ambition which justifies and organizes its action. This one becomes then a Expérience within the meaning of an engagement in a situation of testing period of the facts. Thus, starting from an initial objective, the technician aims at the access to a result which he will consider positive and which will devote the success of his action, the relevance of his step and the effectiveness of his method.

The paradox of the effectiveness

Consequently, any opinion on the technical effectiveness implies:

1. a possibility of comparing,

2. a scale of measurement which corresponds to a capacity to judge in term of “better” or “less better”,
3. a representation of time, i.e. a scale of duration.

The illusion of technical fate

• of the genealogies of objects whose evolution was abruptly stopped, not by technical deficiencies, but because of modifications of the objectives (of the project). It is for example the case of the Dirigeable sacrificed on the furnace bridge speed or the clamp considered as a decisive progress for horsemanship until the Renaissance but which will be neglected by the Indiens of America

• of the refusal of engagement in technological trajectories given although accessible in term from feasibility. It is for example the case of the Roue, used in toys Aztèques whereas this Civilization forever developed machines using the wheel. In the same way, the slowness of the diffusion of the Brouette illustrates the influence of the culture on the technique.

Consequently, it is advisable to be freed from a deterministic vision to note the absence of progressions systematically directed towards “always” or “always better” in term of effectiveness. Perhaps the Sustainable development corresponds to a contemporary example of reorientation of a technical project because of a modification of the intentions and thus of the subjacent motivation.

The field of application

They can be gathered in a more or less arbitrary way around some fundamental topics such as:

1. development of technical objects answering functions of use precise (mechanization in its most various forms or production of objects of consumption),

2. exploitation in the fields of the energy, the mines, the Agriculture, the Hunting or the fishings,
3. transformations of the raw materials, processes thermal, chemical, physical or mechanical, or production of synthetic compounds,
4. activities of Construction, the organization and control of space, the Transport or the Art S soldiers.

See also: History of the techniques (chronology)

An illustration in experimental archeology

That made of the centuries that the Grassmayr family does not run any more guns and up to that point, all the other attempts to manufacture a gun according to the old methods failed…

Manufacture must follow the ancestral process step by step, in so far as all the stages are still known. For that, Grassmayr lay out of a chronic family old woman 400 year old, with in particular of the plane of construction and the tables of particular alloys of bronze. After re-starting of old the Foundry with its furnace with wood which must give an at the same time stable and raised heat, manufacture begins according to the technique from the lost Cire. Finally the stage comes from fusion and last addition from tin little before casting: this operation is done at one exact moment whose only founder knows the secret . In the same way, the moment of cast and its flow are determined by the experiment of the founder . After fourteen days of cooling, the bronze barrel is released from its gangue of Argile. Unfortunately a long crack appears on the side: the failure is allotted to a temperature of insufficient casting.

Thus, the Know-how to run guns with old was lost, and by là-même the Art of former foundry foremen just like the technical Expérience acquired during the centuries.

If the original intention were not reached, this experiment is not less rich of lesson because it illustrates in a concrete way the delicate problem of safeguarding and transmission of the technical training .

A technique have-scientist

The technique forms integral part of the history of the ideas. Like such, she was neglected too a long time, the recent period compares it generally and wrongly to the Histoire of sciences. However it is necessary well to admit the possibility of a technique have-scientist, i.e. evolving/moving apart from all scientific Corpus .

To be convinced some, it is enough to examine the work of a mechanic. This one is unaware of all work Thermodynamique S of the inventors of the thermal engine Beau of Rochas or Sadi Carnot. It however acquired a whole of reference marks which enable him to have a technical activity good real and perfectly effective.

This form of knowledge can thus be connected with Empirisme which we will define as “a quantity of accumulated and concordant observations which make it possible to release a certain form of truth without seeking the scientific causes of them and logical reasoning”. This approach technician can be also summarized by the formula “cuts and tests”, approach the concept of Expérience which is the knowledge acquired during the years by the practice and the reflection, or be illustrated by the modern concept of “wheel of quality” of Edwards Deming. For Bertrand Gille, technological advance was done by a sum of failures that corrected some spectacular successes.

On the scale of the history, it is remarkable to note that the technical training of have-scientist type and Heuristique was the rule a long time, that technological advance extremely well put up with it until the 18th century, time when the theories will develop and with them new forms of axiomatized knowledge .

Methods of transmission of the technical training

It acts in particular:

• of the gesture and the word,
• of the receipt,
• of description and the drawing,
• of the reduced model,
• of the numerical model,
• of the scientific technique,

The gesture and word

In this case, the Apprentissage is the rule to acquire, and consequently to transmit, the technical training which generally will be organized around some fundamental topics like:

• the choice of the raw material,

• the knowledge of the act and dexterity,
• the optimal use of the Tool S,
• the nature of the object to be manufactured.

To introduce in France of the new techniques, Colbert will make come from the skilled workers with obligation to learn these trades with the autochtones. Diderot will note that “ it is the labor which makes the artist and it is not in the books that one can learn how to operate ”. Other authors will note the importance of this form of transmission of know-how:

… of others Art S industrialists is hardly approached in the texts; it is in particular the case of the metallurgy, art however carried at tops of technology in the countries of Islam. It appears besides obvious that the ceramicses in general are trades which are exerted in workshop, often in a family setting, and with a transmission of the knowledge which is done directly of the Master to the pupil . |Yves TO CARRY

This form of acquisition of knowledge - for example through the Trade-guild - remains today of a great value and effectiveness for many technical specialities: to organize (main/apprentice, junior/senior…) is only interest included/understood well, to want to be unaware of it come down to cut the wire of knowledge whereas in the area of the technology, continuity in the effort inter-générationnel is precisely the rule. One can also speak about knowing by Témoignage.

See also: : Category: Know-how

The receipt

The receipt is an operational process, quantified or not, which makes it possible to arrive at the required result. It is an accumulation of observations, a knowledge of memory centered on “how” rather than on the scientific knowledge of “why”.

The receipts can be various types:

1. receipts of time or times which are, for example, of the dates of execution of such or such operation (ex: “with the Holy Catherine, any wood takes root” , date to cut the timber,…),

2. receipts of aspect to control a manufacture (ex: color of the flame of the furnace Thomas, optimal cooking of frozen of quinces,…),
3. receipts of quality which can relate to the choice of the raw materials (ex: use of iron according to its break by Mathurin Jousse),
4. receipts of mixture to determine the proportions of the various elements which use the clothes industry of a given product (ex: receipt of the Pulp of Bordeaux).

During centuries, the term “receipt” constituted the title of many technical works. The modern meaning restricts it with knowledge as regards kitchen (see Recettes of kitchen, Recettes of pastry making) whereas in the other technical fields, the receipt gradually took a pejorative connotation.

The medieval technical literature is primarily made receipts because consisted of not systematized disparate elements. Let us quote some examples:

• artistic technique with the monk German Benedictine Theophilus,

• receipts of chemistry (topic studied by the historian Pierre Cézard),
• the machines of war with the treaty of Guy de Vigevano about 1320,
• techniques of Gothic architecture with Villard de Honnecourt, Picardy architect of second half of the 13th century.

Until the 20th century, the Agriculture was primarily a technique of receipts.

Description and the drawing

From works of the the Middle Ages and to the notebooks of the engineers of the Rebirth, one witnesses a progressive evolution of the simple literal description towards the Dessin which will then become the privileged vector of the technical training.

Notebooks of engineers

The “notebooks of engineers” are collections where each one noted all that it had been able to see of interesting for its trade, all that had drawn its curiosity and its attention.

These notebooks are gradually covered with drawings which will be at the origin of the Technical design. They will lead to the Renaissance with the “theaters of machines” which are machines of representation with Gravure S presenting of the cuts and the sectional views, the supplemented whole of some summary explanations.

Treaties

Gradually new works appear where the author joins together all that relates to a manufacture given with a critical spirit but not yet scientific.

In the field of the Metallurgy, one will quote for example Georgius Agricola in Germany or Vannoccio Biringuccio in Italy. Thus are born from the treaties of gun foundry, distilling, dyeing, architecture or of town planning which attest progressive constitution of an ordered technology.

At the end of the 17th century appears “true description” with the Academy of Science and Colbert. The encyclopedia of Diderot and of Alembert will follow this same way. The 18th century counts many treaties of agriculture, like that of the English agronomist Jethro Tull. Gradually any technical sector will have its treaty and all Western Europe will take part in this movement.

The technical reviews appear at the end of the 18th century like the “ Journal ” then the “ Annales ” of the mines (1794) or the Journal of Arts and Manufactures (1795).

Lastly, the 19th century will see the abandonment of the theaters of machines and descriptions to the profit of the treated technical because of advance of sciences and the alliance reinforced between science and technology.

The technical design

The first representations are overall drawings, they will grow rich gradually by the details of various parts of the machine (Of Re mettalica) or of boards presenting the unit of the necessary tools to a trade (the encyclopedia).

Then the charts will come with the concern from the quotation, as at Lorenzo Ghiberti for the cast iron of the bells to the 15th century or Matthew Baker for the construction of the ships. Those will evolve to the drawing with dimensions then the draftsmanship (18th century) with cuts, plans, profiles and sections.

From the years 1950, the draftsmanship will be the subject of research and development for its computerization and the large automobile manufacturers (General Motors) and aeronautics (, Boeing, Dassault) will finance the first software of CAD in 2 dimensions which will commercially become available as from the years 1960.

The small-scale model

It seems that the Greek mechanics used the model reduced for research technical and understood that he was not necessarily homothetic, i.e. the reduction to very the scale of all the elements of a machine.

The small-scale model was practiced by the engineers of the Renaissance, in particular for the buildings in construction and Léonard de Vinci will carry out experiments Hydraulique S on small sizes.

Parallel to the current aiming at the representation, the “collection” will be developed by scientists, the simple curious one or on the initiative about universities like Oxford. In 1683, in Paris the first exposure of models of machines built by the Périer brothers takes place. They are small-scale models of machines realized according to the drawings of some theaters of machines to which come to be added ten new inventions.

Built at ends of demonstrations to the training service, the small-scale models will be used regularly for the experimentation. By adding scientific description, one then has all the components of a true technology.

Sometimes coming simple cabinets from curiosity, certain collections remained famous the such models and machines gathered by the engineer Jacques de Vaucanson which will be at the origin of the Conservatoire national of arts and trades, future Musée of arts and trades and of which the original intention was the encouragement with the Innovation.

In the same spirit, will be born later a wave from Musée S techniques and industrialists with for double mission the transmission of know-how and the protection of the industrial property.

The development of the technical press combined with the practice of the draftsmanship will make lose with the model reduces its utility like tool for teaching of the technical training. However, this current model maker will still persist, as the models united a long time with the deposits testify some to Brevet S.

Lastly, the demonstration by models of the technicians preceded certainly that by the physicists with the cabinets of physics in which it was a question of making perceive phenomena which one was unable to give an account of manner scientific.

The numerical model

Thanks to the computer, the numerical Model and the numerical Ingénierie allows many analyzes:

• analyzes Static S,
• analyzes Kinematic S,
• analyzes Dynamic S,
• analyzes vibratory S,
• analyzes Acoustic S,
• analyzes rheological S,
• analyzes of assembly S…

A scientific technique

The theory (or science) highlights a certain number of principles, technical explanations of phenomena, but is not enough to have a perfect command of the effective action: this margin precisely represents the difference between the technical training and knowledge in scientific type (ex: the Tribology)

To develop a scientific technique, a certain conjunction is needed initially, i.e. a type of science which one can be useful oneself and, opposite, a type of technique favourable with a theorization.

A first theoretical test of treatment of a technique is undoubtedly in the toothed wheels and the reductions reported to the theory of the levers. The Of ponderibus of Jordanus Nemorarius (13th century) constitutes an good example of work in which the scientific concerns are frays with concrete engineering problems.

Until the 19th century, the Géométrie was probably only science usable by the Technicien S. Ainsi appear many works of practical geometry, written in “vulgar” language, which are attached to the tradition of the treaties of calculation, and in which the author simplifies by providing the useful formulas without being encumbered details of the demonstration.

Towards the Rebirth, one witnesses an inversion of method: the technician will not seek any more in science some knowledge, the few formulas which were directly useful for him, it created the science which is necessary for him and is interested in the theoretical developments which it authorizes. 16th century at the 18th century, with a prolongation until the 19th century, the majority of the scientists will be also technicians, the dialog between science and technology will be permanent.

See also: Mathematical in Europe at the XVIIe century

Several strategies of scientific formalization of the technical training appear and are described hereafter:

• the table,
• the module,
• the quantified formula,
• theorization a posteriori,
• theorization a priori.

The table or principle of the ordered number

For Aristote “ all that one can know has a number, without the number we do not include/understand nor do not know anything ”. And, Gilles to write in connection with the mechanics of the School of Alexandria: “ their refusal of qualities, of the abstract entities their attachment with the quantity, the number, the series, with the table, enabled them to go further, in ways which were closed in their turn ”. At the beginning must be what Philon de Byzance called the element first who must be measurable (weight, dimension…). Then, it is necessary to vary a certain number of other quite selected elements, them so measurable, so that there are no more there of simple observations isolated from/to each other. One gives up the varieties then for the variations while sticking to a particular phenomenon to try to objectify all the variables of them and to test the sensitivity of it. Thus the search for variations reveals gradually series of ordered figures which can be put in tables to refine the comprehension of the concept and to prepare its mathematisation.

The first tables are known as “tables of observation” or simply of “correspondence”. They must lead to a universally allowed law and that the technicians will be able to translate into “tables of execution” or abacus S. Thus will be gradually made up as from the 15th century various tables, like the tables of navigation or tables of shooting for the Artillery with powder with Galileo

With the tables, it does not matter for the Technicien, the explanation of what it carries out since it can from now on act. Science is then utility and “it is not necessary any more to only advance its knowledge beyond the limits assigns the objectives” to take again the terms of Gaston Bachelard.

The module or principle of the element first

According to Vitruve, the modular rate/rhythm includes/understands:

• the proportion which are reports/ratios of size connecting the elements two to two,

• the symetriae which are the reports/ratios which bind each element to the fundamental unit, i.e. with the module.

From there, the concepts of proportion, tone or of harmony come.

Well-known structures about it with the Golden section, the module also finds itself with Philon de Byzance for the construction of the machines Balistique S in which the relation between the weight of the ball and energy necessary for the throw was retained like element first, i.e. like module. With the Archimedes' screw, the length of the screw constitutes another example of module: the diameter of the screw represents 1/16e of module, the step of the propeller 1/8e.

The tradition will persist until the Steam engine, for which Sebastien de Maillard and its predecessors will try to circumvent the scientific obstacles using modules but also of formulas. In this case, the use of the proportions makes it possible not to clarify constants sometimes difficult to determine. Of the same Galileo was unaware of as the bearing of the ball on the tilted level “absorbed” the 2/7e G: while proceeding by comparisons, it was freed from the knowledge of this data.

Example of a contemporary application: construction of a wine tank in the egg shape by using the layout of the pentagon by the method of Ptolémée; the Golden section constitutes the module here.

See also: Concept of module

The algebraical expression

Thus, of many tables can give matter to Courbe S, therefore with an algebraic formula . The applicable but nondemonstrable formula constitutes a receipt in mathematical language: its role was undoubtedly considerable in the history of the technique.

Theorization a posteriori

It is with Archimedes that one tries a first theorization on the lever. Héron of Alexandria will try to make the theory of the simple machines by reducing the problem to known scientific concepts, in particular the lever.

Léonard de Vinci will seek to create a rational technique, i.e. at scientific base but that the science of its time will not be able to bring to him.

To theorize a technique, it is necessary to have at the beginning an adequate science. For example:

• without the Dynamic , the Balistique could not exist. The artillerists had experimental tables of shooting, and this as of the end of the 15th century. Ballistic science their made it possible to explain the things but especially to draw up more precise tables,

• the Steam engine extremely well functioned, was even sophisticated, before Sadi Carnot does not give the general theory in 1824 ( Réflexions on the horse-power of fire - Paris ) and creates of it, in the tread, an entirely new discipline: the Thermodynamic .

Theorization a priori

Chemical industry existed well before the creation of modern chemistry by Lavoisier and Priesley, as for the Salpêtre, the Teinture, the spirit of salt or the greasy substances. However, it was blocked on a certain level until science throws the bases of chemical industry. The passage of knowledge to industry will require the creation of an interface of scientific exchanges/technical corresponding to the Chemical engineering, in which associations between chemists and engineers, scientists and technicians will be and who will make be gradually erased the border between technical training and scientific knowledge.

With the nuclear industry, the demonstration becomes even more convincing: its development would never have taken place without the preliminary acquisition of the corresponding scientific knowledge.

Lastly, the theoretical discovery of the Laser (amplified coherent light) at the beginning of the XXe century by Albert Einstein sees his first industrial applications in the years 1950 whereas one century later, in the year 2000, nobody any more is moved by an engraver of CD-ROM.

The creation of the schools which will exempt a scientific teaching based on physics and mathematics will be a decisive turn. Thus, the school of the engineers of the Université of Leyde will entrust since 1600 a course of mathematics to Simon Stevin. Beside the German cameralists, France will direct itself towards the creation of schools of Engineer S, with inter alia, the schools of hydrography (1682) charged to teach the rules of sea transport, the École of the Highways Departments (1747), the School of the mines (1783) or the Polytechnic school (1794) thanks to the Convention.

Outlines

It seems that on a side exist techniques known as “elementary” in which the gesture and word, empiricism or the receipt is the bases of knowledge. One will find them today rather in the activities of installation, repair or in the Artisanat.

On the other hand, would be a technician activity made of scientific requirements with an objective of design, of Ingénierie, development of tools and technical objects.

Between the two, would be another form of technicality, based on the operations of development and development which always require “knack”, “easy way” and “correction”.

Arrived at the end of this long course guided by historical lighting, it is advisable to wonder what the contemporary Technicien is able to retain for the exercise of its trade. We initially invite it to evaluate for its sphere of activity the weight of the various vectors of the technical training. It can then wonder what the vectors can bring to him which are not traditional in its speciality and to evaluate - why not - how to support emergence of it.