Most people are changed by the world,
but a few change the world.
Maurice Anthony Biot (1905-1985)
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He was a Belgian-American applied physicist. He made great contributions in thermodynamics, aeronautics, geophysics, earthquake engineering, and electromagnetism. He was accredited as the founder of the theory of poroelasticity.
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Everyone knowns Biot. Here is an article M. A. Biot : A man of unique talent.
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His scientific achievements can be found here.
Portrait of MA Biot
Ahmed Cemal Eringen (1921-2009)
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He was a Turkish-American engineering scientist. He made great contributions in continuum mechanics and nonlocal theories. He was accredited as the founder of the theory of electrodynamics of continua.
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The Eringen Medal is named in his honor.
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A brief biographies and scientific achievements of him can be found here and here.
Portrait of AC Eringen
Eringen Medal
Clifford Ambrose Truesdell (1919-2000)
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He was an American mechanics. He was almost a pinnacle and terminator of classical continuum mechanics and thermodynamics.
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Everyone knowns Truesdell. The most famous monograph, co-authored with Walter Noll, Non-linear Field Theories of Mechanics, is a peak of classical continuum mechanics theory.
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He was the founder of journal Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis.
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His biographies and scientific achievements can be found here, here, here, and here.
Portrait of C Truesdell
Walter Noll (1925-2017)
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He was almost a pinnacle and terminator of classical continuum mechanics and thermodynamics, and a master who unified and formalized the axiomatization and mathematization of continuum mechanics.
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A brief biographies and scientific achievements of him can be found here and here.
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There is no doubt that The Foundations of Mechanics and Thermodynamics, by Noll W, is a peak in the history of continuum mechancis.
Portrait of W Noll
Juan Carlos Simo (1952-1994)
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He was a young genius and a master who bridged computational mechanics and continuum mechanics, making groundbreaking contributions, particularly to the computational methods for finite deformation theory.
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A brife biographies and scientific achievements of him can be found here and here.
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Stanford University established Juan C. Simo Thesis Award.
Portrait of JC Simol
James Robert Rice (1940.12.3 -present)
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He has made fundamental contributions to various aspects of solid mechanics. Two of his early contributions are the concept of the J-integral in fracture mechanics and an explanation of how plastic deformations localize in a narrow band.
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A brife biographies and scientific achievements of him can be found here and here.
Stewart Silling (19?? -present)
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He is regarded as the father of peridynamics, having pioneered the simulation of damage and fracture through his seminal work, "Reformulation of elasticity theory for discontinuities and long-range forces". I believe that he is a physicist and applied his physical knowledage to applied mechanics.
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A brife biographies and scientific achievements of him can be found here.