Engineering: Braking Down the Boundaries

Sometimes engineering can't help us only to break physical or geographical barriers, such as the 'Chunnel' project did, but this field is up to break cultural limits too. The Channel Tunnel implied more than only building a railway underwater, it brought up the possibility of building a solid friendship between the two countries involved in the project: France and the U.K.. We could easily notice that these two countries had never had a good relationship between them, not only because of cultural factors, but also because of historical ones; they used to compete with each other, and not exactly in a friendly way. When the 'Chunnel' project emerged, it served as a new competition for both countries, but this time they competed for being the first country to reach the middle of the tunnel and the first one to break the physical and cultural barriers. Now engineering served as a challenge for both nations to demonstrate to the world what they are up to. The U.K. had to face some difficulties, but its determination was worth, they succeeded at achieving their goal.

This way we can notice how engineering is not only about innovating in science, and building stuff, but also developing friendship, cooperation and team work; the cultural limits that France and the U.K. could have had were completely broken down through engineering.