The Art of Engineering

Engineering majors and art students rarely cross paths in college.  But on the campus of the University of South Florida, engineering students are shown measuring the dimensions of a work of modern art, thanks to engineering professor David Snider.

Incorporating the works of the masters, the tools of artists and the perspective of engineers, Snider has merged the two subjects into a single attempt to broaden the perspectives of his students and open their eyes to a world they might otherwise bypass.

Snider draws students in with topics that span from general interest--such as early theories of light and the structure of the eye--to more engineer-centric topics including a detailed exploration of the wave nature of light and the creation of cameras, from pinhole to digital.

The course, which presents nearly 100 artists ranging from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol, even dabbles in new technologies researchers have been using to identify forgeries or determine if a work was created by a famous artist or an understudy.

Students get to create pinhole cameras, attempt to dissect modern technologies, and use a language familiar to the engineers to reinforce engineering principles regarding optics, electromagnetism and signal processing.

--LiveScience Staff

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Credit: University of South Florida