History of Mechanics
Mechanics is the integral part of mechanical engineering. As a field of education, it started from the time of Aristotle. Many of the concepts provided by Aristotle are proven wrong, for example, his concept that the motion continues only as long as a for
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History of Mechanics
Abstract Mechanics is the integral part of mechanical engineering. As a field of education, it started from the time of Aristotle. Many of the concepts provided by Aristotle are proven wrong, for example, his concept that the motion continues only as long as a force is applied on it. However, he started a tradition of logic in understanding the dynamics of bodies. During the third century BC, Archimedes contributed a lot to mechanics and invented many machines. His principle of buoyancy is taught in schools nowadays. The breakthrough in mechanics came since the time of Galileo. The principles of Galileo and Newton are used by mechanical engineers profoundly. Later on, a lot of developments took place in mechanics, notably the development of methods based on energy formulation, strength of materials and plasticity. Einstein developed a theory of relativity and established that Newton’s laws are not valid in all circumstances. Nevertheless, for the most of the day to day applications, Newton’s laws are good enough.
Keywords Mechanics Aristotle Archimedes Galileo Newton Hero of Alexandria Energy methods Einstein Theory of relativity Calculus of variations Strength of materials Plasticity
3.1
Introduction
Engineering is as old as the human civilization, although the word “engineer” came into existence around 1325 AD. Our life is very much dependent on engineers and everyone has a feel of engineering, but for many persons there is often a lack of clarity about engineering. In the beginning, engineering was considered as an art. Engineers used to invent machines and structures. Mechanics originated as the branch of physics that deals with the theory of machines. One of the oldest machines is lever. With the help of a lever, a heavy weight can be lifted by the application of small force as shown in Fig. 3.1. There is evidence of use of lever even before 2500 BC. Weighing balance also works on lever principle. Lever is one such machine that is not obsolete even today. Figure 3.2 shows a scissor that also is © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 U.S. Dixit et al., A Brief History of Mechanical Engineering, Materials Forming, Machining and Tribology, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42916-8_3
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3 History of Mechanics
Fig. 3.1 A lever for lifting a heavy load
load Effort
Fulcrum
Fig. 3.2 A scissor
Fulcrum Effort
Load
essentially a lever. It comprises two lever rods of type shown in Fig. 3.1. During the time of Aristotle, a law of lever was developed. This law is valid till today. Mechanics can be considered to have started during the time of Aristotle (384 BC– 322 BC) mainly with the study of lever. Aristotle and some other philosophers of his time developed theories for many physical phenomena based on their intuition. Most of the theories have been proven wrong. However, those theories stimulated the logical thinking. A theory can be right or wrong; but in any case, it shows the ingenuity of human mind. The history of science starts with the ancien
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