What is geotechnical engineering? People in the streets answer Featured

Let's see a wide range of answers about how common people perceive the term "geotechnics."

Geotechnical engineering involves numerous scientific fields including soil and rock mechanics, hydrogeology, geophysics and geology. According to whatisgeotech.org, "Geotechnical engineering is the science that explains mechanics of soil and rock and its applications to the development of human kind. It includes, without being limited to, the analysis, design and construction of foundations, slopes, retaining structures, embankments, roadways, tunnels, levees, wharves, landfills and other systems that are made of or are supported by soil or rock."

At least, this is how people related with this occupation understand the term. The French Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (CFMS), member of ISSMGE, released a footage (click the video below to watch) asking people in the streets what the term geotechnics stands for. This video belongs to the series "Let's talk about geotechnics!". Here are the answers that they got:

Well, some of them, including 3 children, clearly did not have a clue about the term and weren't afraid to say so:

• I don't know.
• I don't know.
• Geograph...I don't know.
• That's an area I don't know at all because I gave up Physics and Chemistry a while ago.

Some others decided to give it a shot and we got some pretty good answers:

• Has it got something to do with geography?
• It's technology in the world?
• It's got something to do with geography, technologies related to the environment?
• It might be the study of soil. But I'm not sure.
• You don't often hear about that. It doesn't sound very sexy, does it? With enormous machines, dust, gigantic installations, it's really noisy. Well in fact, it sounds pretty rough.

2 of them were clearly aware of the term's nature:

• It's all about earthquakes, building techniques used to deal with these problems. When you build a big building, you've got to have proper foundations...Earthquake-resistant and suited to the size of the building.
• I reckon in geotechnics there is "geo" and there is "technics" it's sure to be geological technology. The resistance of materials found in geology. It's normal that the machines are there, they are digging and, in the end, they get to the bottom. But, how do they get back up?

But the best answer came from a woman who clearly confused geotechnics with something else.

• Geotech...It's a dance? That thing that everyone was dancing a few years ago!...A bit like Macarena, she said.

Geotechnics is a compound word. It's first component is "geo", borrowed from Greek geō- meaning "earth, land, country," perhaps contracted from gaîa "earth," of pre-Greek substratal origin. This is one of the reasons that people find hard to interpret its meaning.

The term was later explained to a woman who was interviewed and she commented: "I admire the grandioze aspect and the aeshetics of the constructions because architects manage brilliantly to combine the two but it's true all I can see is the tip of the iceberg and not the whole iceberg and all the work involved during construction of this type of building."

Another man humorously said: "The question you ask yourself (about structures) is: It's not going to collapse, is it?"

Click the following links to visit CFMS's Youtube channel and official site.