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, geomechanics, biomechanics, and mechanics of materials. 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 Ratings. 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 The term seems to have originated in the era of the 7A Rotary system exchange, and was superseded by "Technician" circa 1975, perhaps because "Mechanician" was no longer considered appropriate after the first 2000 type Step-byStep Strowger switch exchanges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 Robert Hooke: 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 Sophie Germain: elasticity Siméon Denis Poisson: elasticity Claude-Louis Navier: elasticity, fluid mechanics Augustin Louis Cauchy: elasticity Barré de Saint-Venant: elasticity William Rowan Hamilton: Hamiltonian mechanics George Gabriel Stokes: fluid mechanics Gustav Kirchhoff: theory of plates Josiah Willard Gibbs: thermodynamics Heinrich Rudolf Hertz: 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: Elasticity (physics) Ludwig Prandtl: Fluid mechanics, Plasticity Stephen Timoshenko: author of many lasting textbooks, father of modern applied mechanics Theodore von Karman: Fluid mechanics, Structural instability Richard Edler von Mises: Plasticity Geoffrey Ingram Taylor: Fluid mechanics, theory of dislocations. Alan Arnold Griffith: founder of Fracture mechanics George Rankine Irwin: father of modern Fracture mechanics Warner T. Koiter: Solid mechanics, Structural instability John D. Eshelby: inclusion in elastic body
Honors and awards by European Mechanics Society [1],
Euromech Fellow [2] Solid and Fluid Mechanics Prizes [3] by Applied Mechanics Division, American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Timoshenko Medal Koiter Medal Drucker Medal Thomas K. Caughey Dynamics Award Ted Belytschko Applied Mechanics Award Thomas J.R. Hughes Young Investigator Award by American Society of Civil Engineers
Theodore von Karman Medal, ASCE by Society of Engineering Science, Inc.
Eringen Medal William Prager Medal in Solid Mechanics G. I. Taylor Medal in Fluid Mechanics
See also Applied mechanics Mechanics Geomechanics Biomechanics Structural analysis Fluid mechanics
Footnotes
External links iMechanica, news and views of interest to mechanicians and their friends. Homepage of the ASME International Applied Mechanics Division Mathematics Genealogy Project Mechanician Career Description The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive