A mechanician is an engineer or a scientist working in the field of
mechanics, or in a related or sub-field: engineering or
computational mechanics,
applied mechanics
Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and e ...
,
geomechanics,
biomechanics, and
mechanics of materials
The field of strength of materials, also called mechanics of materials, typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the re ...
. Names other than mechanician have been used occasionally, such as mechaniker and mechanicist.
The term mechanician is also used by the
Irish Navy to refer to junior engine room ratings. In the
British Royal Navy, Chief Mechanicians and Mechanicians 1st Class were
Chief Petty Officers, Mechanicians 2nd and 3rd Class were
Petty Officers, Mechanicians 4th Class were
Leading Ratings, and Mechanicians 5th Class were
Able Rating
Able seaman is a military rank used in naval forces.
Royal Navy
In 1653 the Royal Navy introduced a new pay scale as part of reforms following defeat in the Battle of Dungeness the previous year. Included in these reforms were, for the firs ...
s.
The rate was only applied to certain technical specialists and no longer exists.
In the
New Zealand Post Office, which provided telephone service prior to the formation of
Telecom New Zealand in 1987, "Mechanician" was a job classification for workers who serviced telephone exchange switching equipment. The term seems to have originated in the era of the 7A
Rotary system exchange, and was superseded by "Technician" circa 1975, perhaps because "Mechanician" was no longer considered appropriate after the first 2000 type Step-byStep
Strowger switch exchanges began to be introduced in 1952 (in
Auckland, at
Birkenhead exchange).
It is also the term by which makers of mechanical
automata use in reference to their profession.
People who made lasting contributions to mechanics prior to the 20th century
*
Ibn al-Haytham:
motion
*
Galileo Galilei: notion of
strength
Strength may refer to:
Physical strength
*Physical strength, as in people or animals
*Hysterical strength, extreme strength occurring when people are in life-and-death situations
*Superhuman strength, great physical strength far above human ca ...
*
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...
:
Hooke's law
*
Isaac Newton:
Newton's laws,
law of gravitation
*
Guillaume Amontons: laws of
friction
*
Leonhard Euler:
buckling,
rigid body dynamics
*
Jean le Rond d'Alembert:
d'Alembert's principle,
Wave equation
*
Joseph Louis Lagrange:
Lagrangian mechanics
*
Pierre-Simon Laplace: effects of
surface tension
Surface tension is the tendency of liquid surfaces at rest to shrink into the minimum surface area possible. Surface tension is what allows objects with a higher density than water such as razor blades and insects (e.g. water striders) to f ...
*
Sophie Germain:
elasticity
Elasticity often refers to:
*Elasticity (physics), continuum mechanics of bodies that deform reversibly under stress
Elasticity may also refer to:
Information technology
* Elasticity (data store), the flexibility of the data model and the cl ...
*
Siméon Denis Poisson:
elasticity
Elasticity often refers to:
*Elasticity (physics), continuum mechanics of bodies that deform reversibly under stress
Elasticity may also refer to:
Information technology
* Elasticity (data store), the flexibility of the data model and the cl ...
*
Claude-Louis Navier:
elasticity
Elasticity often refers to:
*Elasticity (physics), continuum mechanics of bodies that deform reversibly under stress
Elasticity may also refer to:
Information technology
* Elasticity (data store), the flexibility of the data model and the cl ...
,
fluid mechanics
*
Augustin Louis Cauchy:
elasticity
Elasticity often refers to:
*Elasticity (physics), continuum mechanics of bodies that deform reversibly under stress
Elasticity may also refer to:
Information technology
* Elasticity (data store), the flexibility of the data model and the cl ...
*
Barré de Saint-Venant:
elasticity
Elasticity often refers to:
*Elasticity (physics), continuum mechanics of bodies that deform reversibly under stress
Elasticity may also refer to:
Information technology
* Elasticity (data store), the flexibility of the data model and the cl ...
*
William Rowan Hamilton:
Hamiltonian mechanics
*
George Gabriel Stokes:
fluid mechanics
*
Gustav Kirchhoff:
theory of plates
*
Josiah Willard Gibbs:
thermodynamics
*
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit o ...
:
contact mechanics
People who made lasting contributions to mechanics and died during or after the 20th century
*
Ludwig Burmester: theory of linkages
*
Carlo Alberto Castigliano
Carlo Alberto Castigliano (9 November 1847, in Asti – 25 October 1884, in Milan) was an Italian mathematician and physicist known for Castigliano's method for determining displacements in a linear-elastic system based on the partial deriva ...
:
Elasticity (physics)
*
Ludwig Prandtl:
Fluid mechanics,
Plasticity
Plasticity may refer to:
Science
* Plasticity (physics), in engineering and physics, the propensity of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation under load
* Neuroplasticity, in neuroscience, how entire brain structures, and the brain it ...
*
Stephen Timoshenko: author of many lasting textbooks, father of modern applied mechanics
*
Theodore von Karman
Theodore may refer to:
Places
* Theodore, Alabama, United States
* Theodore, Australian Capital Territory
* Theodore, Queensland, a town in the Shire of Banana, Australia
* Theodore, Saskatchewan, Canada
* Theodore Reservoir, a lake in Saskatche ...
:
Fluid mechanics,
Structural instability
*
Richard Edler von Mises
Richard Edler von Mises (; 19 April 1883 – 14 July 1953) was an Austrian scientist and mathematician who worked on solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, aeronautics, statistics and probability theory. He held the position of Gordon ...
:
Plasticity
Plasticity may refer to:
Science
* Plasticity (physics), in engineering and physics, the propensity of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation under load
* Neuroplasticity, in neuroscience, how entire brain structures, and the brain it ...
*
Geoffrey Ingram Taylor:
Fluid mechanics, theory of
dislocations.
*
Alan Arnold Griffith: founder of
Fracture mechanics
Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics t ...
*
George Rankine Irwin: father of modern
Fracture mechanics
Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics t ...
*
Warner T. Koiter
Warner Tjardus Koiter (Amsterdam, June 16, 1914 – Delft, September 2, 1997) was an influential mechanical engineer and the Professor of Applied Mechanics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands from 1949 to 1979.
Life and educa ...
:
Solid mechanics,
Structural instability
*
John D. Eshelby
John Douglas Eshelby FRS (21 December 1916 – 10 December 1981) was a scientist in micromechanics. His work has shaped the fields of defect mechanics and micromechanics of inhomogeneous solids for fifty years and provided the basis for the q ...
: inclusion in elastic body
Honors and awards
by European Mechanics Societ
* Euromech Fello
* Solid and Fluid Mechanics Prize
by
Applied Mechanics Division,
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...
*
Timoshenko Medal
*
Koiter Medal
*
Drucker Medal The Daniel C. Drucker medal was instituted in 1997 by the Applied Mechanics Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Drucker Medal is conferred in recognition of distinguished contributions to the fields of applied mechanics a ...
*
Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award The Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award is an award given annually by the Applied Mechanics Division, of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), "in recognition of an individual who has made significant contributions to the field of nonlinear ...
*
Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award
The Applied Mechanics Award is an award given annually by the Applied Mechanics Division of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) "to an outstanding individual for significant contributions in the practice of engineering mechanics; cont ...
*
Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award The Special Achievement Award for Young Investigators in Applied Mechanics is an award given annually by the Applied Mechanics Division, of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The Award is presented at the Applied Mechanics Annual Din ...
by
American Society of Civil Engineers
*
Theodore von Karman Medal
The Theodore von Karman Medal in Engineering Mechanics is awarded annually to an individual in recognition of his distinguished achievement in engineering mechanics, applicable to any branch of civil engineering. This award was established and endo ...
, ASCE
by
Society of Engineering Science, Inc.
A society is a Social group, group of individuals involved in persistent Social relation, social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same Politics, political authority an ...
*
Eringen Medal
*
William Prager Medal
The William Prager Medal is an award given annually by the Society of Engineering Science (SES) to an individual for "outstanding research contributions in either theoretical or experimental Solid Mechanics or both". This medal was established in ...
in Solid Mechanics
*
G. I. Taylor
Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM FRS FRSE (7 March 1886 – 27 June 1975) was a British physicist and mathematician, and a major figure in fluid dynamics and wave theory. His biographer and one-time student, George Batchelor, described him as ...
Medal in Fluid Mechanics
Footnotes
{{Reflist
See also
*
Applied mechanics
Applied mechanics is the branch of science concerned with the motion of any substance that can be experienced or perceived by humans without the help of instruments. In short, when mechanics concepts surpass being theoretical and are applied and e ...
*
Mechanics
*
Geomechanics
*
Biomechanics
*
Materials Science and Engineering
*
Structural analysis
Structural analysis is a branch of Solid Mechanics which uses simplified models for solids like bars, beams and shells for engineering decision making. Its main objective is to determine the effect of loads on the physical structures and thei ...
*
Fluid Mechanics
External links
iMechanica news and views of interest to mechanicians and their friends.
Homepage of the ASME International Applied Mechanics DivisionMathematics Genealogy ProjectThe MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
Mechanics