The Life of one of the Fathers of the Strength of Materials : Stephen Pr. TIMOSHENKO

As the Failure Analyst treat with materials themselves, usually, their failure modes need also to be understood in the way theses materials under given engineered shapes sustain the engineering constrains that are imposed to. From the early times, Technicians, Engineers, Scientifics tried to understand how a given materials behaves under these constrains leading to a discipline called the Strength of Materials" : from the early Mesopotamian builders through Galilee up to nowadays, the paternity of this important engineering field is surely multiple ! Anyway, in the early 20th century, one highly important researcher had the great merit to amazingly synthetize a large part part of the overall knowledge of this very complex and widespread engineering discipline : St. P. TIMOSHENKO ! Not only he synthetized a large part of the field, he also outstandingly developed incredible analysis methodologies leading to the estimation of stress states within materials under complex loading situations revealing in such a way the applied power of the mathematical analysis. His researches and monographs, adjudged as being of the highest usefulness for industry and engineering were and are still regularly republished in more than 36 langages (f.e., "Theory of Elasticity", "Theory of Elastic Stability", "Theory of Plate and Shells", "Strength of Materials", "Applied Elasticity", ...). Born in Ukraine, engineer from and Professor at the St-Petersburg Polytechnics, Professor at the Kiev Polytechnics, has got an incredible early life, emigrating to Yugoslavia (Zagreb Polytechnics) and then to the USA, working for the Westinghouse Electric Corp., inaugurating the first Department of Industrial Mechanics of the Michigan State University and being an outstanding Professor at the Stanford University. St. P. TIMOSHENKO, was winner of 11 international prestigious Prices, member of 7 Academy of Sciences and Dr Honoris Causa of 8 renowned Universities worldwide !