When is the distinction between science fields applicable?

[random_soldier]

Something I have been thinking about and don't really have a good answer to.

For context, let's take physics and engineering for example. From my understanding, a very rough definition of physics would be the study of naturally occurring physical phenomena and understanding how they work. Engineering, again in my words, would be the application of known and well understood phenomena to create systems to achieve needs that people may have, even if that is just to better study some physics that cannot be studied properly by currently and readily available systems.

Now, to my understanding, study of dark matter or even designing a system to study it would still very much be physics as the properties do not seem well understood to my knowledge and any system designed to detect/study it would also require figuring out the physics to do so.

On the other extreme, designing a new efficient irrigation or traffic light system with the help of some new tech like internet of things or artificial intelligence would seem very much like engineering as there is no new phenomena being studied, as far as I can see into this hypothetical. All phenomena and systems are well understood and simply being rearranged for higher efficiency.

Now I don't know where to draw the line in, for example, IC development. Do electrical engineers simply never dabble in or encounter unknown physical phenomena when trying to stretch the limits of what ICs can do? Or do they just write their engineering portions and understanding and leave it to the physicists to figure out the rest? Or does it not count as physics altogether if you discover that even though the phenomena was previously not understood, it turns out to be well documented upon further study? Or do electrical engineers never do any of that in the first place?

I have similar questions for fusion science. Do engineers working on tokamaks just work on improving system efficiency from known physics while physicists think about what they see and what they want to see?

 

[mcastillo356]

For context, let's take physics and engineering for example. From my understanding, a very rough definition of physics would be the study of naturally occurring physical phenomena and understanding how they work. Engineering, again in my words, would be the application of known and well understood phenomena to create systems to achieve needs that people may have, even if that is just to better study some physics that cannot be studied properly by currently and readily available systems pool

It is also my personal opinion
Greetings!!

 

[Frabjous]

These distinctions matter less in the real world. For complex endeavors, both mindsets are needed in the workforce and from my experience, it is more dependent on personality than degree.

 

[Borek]

If you have boxes labelled "white" and "black" but you work with grayscale objects, you will always face this kind of a classification problem. Forget about labels, problem solved

 

[hutchphd]

Why is it important to you to make this distinction? Will there be better outcomes somehow?
It is important to apprehend the things you know, and far more important, the things you might not. Having worked both sides of this fence, I think the classification is not often required very seldom useful .

 

[random_soldier]

Why is it important to you to make this distinction? Will there be better outcomes somehow?
It is important to apprehend the things you know, and far more important, the things you might not. Having worked both sides of this fence, I think the classification is not often required very seldom useful .

I didn't have a good answer either way. So I thought I would ask.

Also never have personally heard nuclear engineers work with nuclear particles of anything higher than MeV range or talk about astrophysical gamma ray spectroscopy despite seeming qualified. Or heard about electrical engineers take a course in QM despite seeming like it would really be helpful in devising new electrical devices (isn't that what the tunneling diode is?).

Though, I am limiting myself to very particular cases. My sample size could also be limited. Or maybe the engineers moved to physics and call themselves physicists or vice versa is why I am seeing one or the other and thinking that they never do the other thing. Or I might just be splitting hairs with my limited information/perspective.