Adrian Bowyer is an English engineer and mathematician, formerly an academic at the

University of Bath (Virgil, Georgics II) , mottoeng = Learn the culture proper to each after its kind , established = 1886 (Merchant Venturers Technical College) 1960 (Bristol College of Science and Technology) 1966 (Bath University of Technology) 1971 (univ ...

. Born in 1952 in London, Bowyer is the older child of the late Rosemary and John Bowyer; the latter was a writer, painter and one of the founders of Zisman, Bowyer and Partners, consulting engineers. Bowyer was educated at Woodroffe School,

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset– Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the He ...

and

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

. In 1977 he joined the Mathematics Department at the

. Shortly after that he received a doctorate from

for research in friction-induced vibration. Whilst working in the Mathematics Department he invented (at the same time as David Watson) the algorithm for computing

Voronoi diagram In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a partition of a plane into regions close to each of a given set of objects. In the simplest case, these objects are just finitely many points in the plane (called seeds, sites, or generators). For each seed ...

s that bears their names (the

Bowyer–Watson algorithm In computational geometry, the Bowyer–Watson algorithm is a method for computing the Delaunay triangulation of a finite set of points in any number of dimensions. The algorithm can be also used to obtain a Voronoi diagram of the points, which is ...

). He then spent twenty-two years as a lecturer then senior lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Bath. He retired from academic life in 2012, though he is still a director of the company RepRap Ltd. He invented the

RepRap Project The RepRap project started in England in 2005 as a University of Bath initiative to develop a low-cost 3D printer that can print most of its own components, but it is now made up of hundreds of collaborators worldwide. RepRap is short for rep''li ...

– an open-source 3D printer that can produce plastic parts, including all such parts for a copy of itself.

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

said of this, " epRaphas been called the invention that will bring down global capitalism, start a second industrial revolution and save the environment..." In 2017 Bowyer received the 3D Printing Industry Outstanding Contribution to 3D Printing Award and was inducted into the TCT Hall of Fame. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the

2019 New Year Honours The 2019 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebratio ...

for services to 3D Printing. His wife is a retired school teacher; they have one adult daughter.

References

External links

Adrian Bowyer's home page

RepRapLtd.com

Wealth Without Money
Adrian Bowyer at

Medialab-Prado The Medialab-Prado, sometimes abbreviated MLP, is a cultural space and citizen lab in Madrid (Spain). It was created by the Madrid City Council in 2000, growing since then into a leading center for citizen innovation. It follows a participatory app ...

In the future everyone will work for 15 minutes
Adrian Bowyer presentation {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowyer, Adrian 1952 births Living people Engineers from London Academics of the University of Bath Articles containing video clips RepRap project Alumni of Imperial College London Date of birth missing (living people) 3D printing specialists Mathematicians from London Members of the Order of the British Empire