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Stephen Timoshenko

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Stephen P. Tymoshenko
Born(1878-12-22)December 22, 1878
Shpotivka, Russian Empire (now Sumy Oblast, Ukraine)
DiedMay 29, 1972(1972-05-29) (aged 93)
Wuppertal, Germany
NationalityUkraine Ukraine
United States United States
Alma materSt.Petersburg Ways of Communication Institute
Known forTimoshenko beam theory
AwardsTimoshenko Medal
Louis E. Levy Medal (1944)
Elliott Cresson Medal (1958)
Scientific career
FieldsEngineering Mechanics
InstitutionsKyiv Polytechnic Institute, University of Michigan, Stanford University
Doctoral studentsJames N. Goodier
Egor Popov

Stephen P. Tymoshenko (Ukrainian: Степан Прокопович Тимошенко, Russian: Степан Прокофьевич Тимошенко, December 22, 1878 – May 29, 1972), was a Ukrainian engineer who is reputed to be the father of modern engineering mechanics. He was a founding member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He wrote many of the seminal works in the areas of engineering mechanics, elasticity and strength of materials, many of which are still widely used today.

Biography

Tymoshenko was born in the village of Shpotivka in the Chernigov Governorate of the Russian Empire (now located in Sumy Oblast of Ukraine). He studied at a "real school"[clarification needed] in Romny, Poltava Governorate (now in Sumy Oblast) from 1889 to 1896. In Romny his schoolmate and friend was future famous semiconductor physicist Abram Ioffe. Tymoshenko continued his education towards a university degree at the St Petersburg Institute of engineers Ways of Communication. After graduating in 1901, he stayed on teaching in this same institution from 1901 to 1903 and then worked at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute under Viktor Kyrpychov 1903–1906. In 1905 he was sent for one year to the University of Göttingen where he worked under Ludwig Prandtl.

In the fall of 1906 he was appointed to the Chair of Strengths of Materials at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. The return to his native Ukraine turned out to be an important part of his career and also influenced his future personal life. From 1907 to 1911 as a professor at the Polytechnic Institute he did research in the earlier variant of the Finite Element Method of elastic calculations, the so-called Rayleigh method. During those years he also pioneered work on buckling, and published the first version of his famous Strength of materials textbook. He was elected dean of the Division of Structural Engineering in 1909.

In 1911 he signed a protest against Minister for Education Kasso and was fired from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. In 1911 he was awarded the D. I. Zhuravski prize of the St.Petersburg Ways of Communication Institute that helped him survive after losing his job. He went to St Petersburg where he worked as a lecturer and then a Professor in the Electrotechnical Institute and the St Petersburg Institute of the Railways (1911–1917). During that time he developed the theory of elasticity and the theory of beam deflection, and continued to study buckling. In 1918 he returned to Kiev and assisted Vladimir Vernadsky in establishing the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences – the oldest academy among the Soviet republics other than Russia.

After the Armed Forces of South Russia of general Denikin had taken Kiev in 1919, Tymoshenko moved from Kiev to Rostov-on-Don. After travel via Novorossiysk, Crimea and Constantinople to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, he arrived to Zagreb, where he got professorship at the Zagreb Polytechnic Institute. In 1920, during the brief takeover of Kiev by the Polish army, Tymoshenko travelled to Kiev, reunited with his family and returned with his family to Zagreb.

He is remembered for delivering lectures in Russian while using as many words in Croatian as he could; the students were able to understand him well.

File:Степан Тимошенко.JPG
A memorial to Stephen Tymoshenko at the KPI campus

United States

In 1922 Tymoshenko moved to the United States where he worked for the Westinghouse Electric Corporation from 1923 to 1927, after which he became a faculty professor in the University of Michigan where he created the first bachelor's and doctoral programs in engineering mechanics. His textbooks have been published in 36 languages. His first textbooks and papers were written in Russian; later in his life, he published mostly in English. From 1936 onward he was a professor at Stanford University.

In 1957 ASME established a medal named after Stephen Tymoshenko; he became its first recipient. The Timoshenko Medal honors Stephen P. Tymoshenko as the world-renowned authority in the field of mechanical engineering and it commemorates his contributions as author and teacher. The Tymoshenko Medal is given annually for distinguished contributions in applied mechanics.

In addition to his textbooks, Tymoshenko wrote two other books, Engineering Education in Russia and As I Remember, the latter an autobiography first published in Russian in 1963 with its English translation appearing in 1968.

In 1960 he moved to Wuppertal (Western Germany) to be with his daughter. He died in 1972 and his ashes are buried in Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto, California.

List of Tymoshenko's doctoral students in the U.S.A.

University of Michigan
3
Stanford University

Publications

  • Applied Elasticity, with J. M. Lessells, D. Van Nostrand Company, 1925
  • Vibration Problems in Engineering, D. Van Nostrand Company, 1st Ed. 1928, 2nd Ed. 1937, 3rd Ed. 1955 (with D. H. Young)
  • Strength of Materials, Part I, Elementary Theory and Problems, D. Van Nostrand Company, 1st Ed. 1930, 2nd Ed. 1940, 3rd Ed. 1955
  • Strength of Materials, Part II, Advanced Theory and Problems, D. Van Nostrand Company, 1st Ed. 1930, 2nd Ed. 1941, 3rd Ed. 1956
  • Theory of Elasticity , McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1st Ed. 1934, 2nd Ed. 1951 (with J. N. Goodier)
  • Elements of Strength of Materials, D. Van Nostrand Co., 1st Ed. 1935, 2nd Ed. 1940, 3rd Ed. 1949 (with G.H. MacCullough), 4th Ed. 1962 (with D.H. Young)
  • Theory of Elastic Stability, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1st Ed. 1936, 2nd Ed. 1961 (with J. M. Gere)
  • Engineering Mechanics, with D.H. Young, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1st Ed. 1937, 2nd Ed. 1940, 3rd. Ed. 1951, 4th Ed. 1956
  • Theory of Plates and Shells , McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1st Ed. 1940, 2nd Ed. 1959 (with S. Woinowsky-Krieger)
  • Theory of Structures, with D. H. Young, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1st Ed. 1945, 2nd Ed. 1965
  • Advanced Dynamics, with D. H. Young, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1948
  • History of The Strength of Materials, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1953
  • Engineering Education in Russia, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1959
  • As I Remember, D. Van Nostrand, 1968, ASIN: B000JOIJ7I
  • Mechanics of Materials , with J. M. Gere, 1st edition, D. Van Nostrand Company, 1972

References

  • Stephen P. Tymoshenko (1968). As I Remember; The Autobiography of Stephen P. Timoshenko. Princeton, Van Nostrand.
  • C. Richard Soderberg (1982). Stephen P. Tymoshenko, 1878-1972: A biographical memoir. The National Academies Press (National Academy of Sciences).
  • Biographical Memoirs about Stephen P. Tymoshenko (machine-read extracts). The National Academies Press (National Academy of Sciences)
  • E. H. Mansfield and D. H. Young, "Stephen P. Tymoshenko," in:. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. vol. 19 (London: The Royal Society, 1973) pp. 679-94.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 19 (1993). Stephen Tymoshenko. Toronto: University of Toronto.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  • В. Борисов, Тимошенко Степан Прокофьевич, Institute of the History of the Natural Sciences and Technology of the Russian Academy of Science

External links


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