John Henry Michell

John Henry Michell (born October 26, 1863 in Maldon (Victoria) , † February 3, 1940 in Camberwell (Victoria) ) was an Australian applied mathematician and engineering scientist ( elasticity theory ).

Michell was the son of an English miner who immigrated to Australia in 1854. After realizing their sons' talents, the parents moved to Melbourne in 1877 , where John Henry Michell attended Wesley College and studied mathematics and physics at the university. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1884, he continued studying at Cambridge University with a master's degree in 1887. He also won the Smith Prize (1889) and was a senior wrangler in the Tripos exams . In 1890 he became a Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge and in 1891 Professor of Mathematics at the University of Melbourne , which he remained until 1928.

He published on applied mechanics such as elasticity theory and hydrodynamics of ships. In 1899 he derived the differential equation for the stress function in the flat, elastic, isotropic case ( Beltrami-Michell equation , also named after Eugenio Beltrami ). He was also the first to develop a theory of thin elastic plates without doubtful assumptions.

In 1902 Michell became a Fellow of the Royal Society .

Fonts

• On the direct determination of stress in an elastic solid, with application to the theory of plates, Proc. of the London Mathematical Society, Volume 31, 1899, pp. 100-124.

literature

• Karl-Eugen Kurrer : The History of the Theory of Structures. Searching for Equilibrium , Ernst & Sohn 2018, p. 707, p. 793, p. 851 and p. 1033 (biography), ISBN 978-3-433-03229-9