engineering

John Argyris

John Argyris is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John Argyris rather than just read about it. In short: Johann Hadjiargyris FRS (Greek: Ιωάννης Χατζιαργύρης; 19 August 1913 – 2 April 2004) was a Greek pioneer of computer applications in science and engineering, among the creators of the finite element method (FEM), and later Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Director of the Institute of Structural Mechanics and Dynamics in Aerospace Engineering. Education He was born in Volos, Greece but the family moved to…

Key takeaways

John Argyris belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Argyris to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Argyris from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Johann Hadjiargyris FRS (Greek: Ιωάννης Χατζιαργύρης; 19 August 1913 – 2 April 2004) was a Greek pioneer of computer applications in science and engineering, among the creators of the finite element method (FEM), and later Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Director of the Institute of Structural Mechanics and Dynamics in Aerospace Engineering.

Education He was born in Volos, Greece but the family moved to Athens where he was educated in the Classical Gymnasium. He studied civil engineering for four years at the National Technical University of Athens and then at the Technische Hochschule München (now Technical University of Munich), receiving his Engineering Diploma in 1936. Following his escape from Nazi Germany he completed his Doctorate at ETH Zurich in 1942.

Career His first job was at the Gollnow company in Stettin, where he was involved among other things in high radio transmitter masts. In 1943, he joined the research department of the Royal Aeronautical Society in England. Starting from 1949 he was lecturer in aeronautical engineering at the Imperial College London of the University of London, where he assumed a chair in 1955. In 1959, Argyris was appointed a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart (today University of Stuttgart) and director of the Institute of Structural Mechanics and Dynamics in Aerospace Engineering. He created the Aeronautical and Astronautical Campus of the University of Stuttgart as focal point for applications of digital computers and electronics. Argyris was involved in and developed to a large extent the Finite Element Method along with Ray William Clough and Olgierd Zienkiewicz after an early mathematical pre-working of Richard Courant.

Awards and honours Argyris was awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society Silver Medal in 1971 and an honorary Doctorate of Science in Maths from Athens University in 1989.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1986. His nomination reads:Professor Argyris commenced his scientific career at Imperial College in 1949 and subsequently accepted in 1959 a joint appointment as Professor at Imperial College and Professor and Director of the Institute of Astronautical Structures at Stuttgart. Professor Argyris pioneered in the United Kingdom and Europe computer mechanics and established in the early 1950s the matrix structural theory introducing the first finite elements concepts including effects of material and geometrical nonlinearities. This work initiated an explosive development of computational mechanics which is still an expanding area. In this field he continued without interruption as one of the leading figures and published a prodigious number of papers (over 300) ranging in applications from structural problems through fluid mechanics, lubrication, celestial mechanics. The computer system ASKA developed under his direction was the model for many subsequent industrial developments. Professor Argyris has been honoured abroad by a great number of distinctions including the Theodore von Karman Medal, Timoshenko Medal [sic] (ASME), I. B. Laskowitz Gold Medal in Astronautics (N.Y. Acad. Of Sc.) and Copernicus Medal (Polish Acad. Of Sc.).

Personal life When World War II started Argyris was in Berlin at the Technische Hochschule (now Technische Universität Berlin). He was arrested and accused of passing research secrets to the Allies. He was saved from execution by Admiral Canaris (thought to be of Greek descent, he was not) who arranged his escape. After swimming the Rhine during an air-raid, he made his way to Switzerland. There he entered ETH Zurich to complete his Doctorate. Argyris died in Stuttgart and is buried in the Sankt Jörgens Cemetery in the city of Varberg, Sweden. His mother's uncle, Constantin Carathéodory, was a Greek mathematician of the Modern Era.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Argyris

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Argyris claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Argyris before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Argyris ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Argyris

In research: John Argyris appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Argyris in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Argyris is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1913 births, 2004 deaths, 20th-century Greek engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Argyris outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John Argyris in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Argyris means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Argyris out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Argyris in simple terms?

Why does John Argyris matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Argyris?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Argyris.