Stephen Timoshenko

STEPHEN P. TIMOSHENKO was born in 1878 in Russia. His father Timofeyevich was a surveyor and his mother was a voracious reader. During his early childhood, Timoshenko enjoyed playing in piles of sand near building construction sites - he built fortresses, castles and especially rail roads. When he was five years old his schooling started. Timoshenko never liked his class room studies and at home he worked with pleasure. He felt sitting five hours every day in a class room is a waste of time. He always pushed himself forward or to display his knowledge to the teacher. Timoshenko studied mathematics with pleasure and solved various problems for amusement and not because they were assigned. When he was promoted to grade four, Timoshenko learnt how to operate a harvesting machine. At the age of 14 he learnt to sketch and draw, and participated in planning and building a house. At the age of 18 he joined an institute at the Ministry of Ways of Communication in St.Petersburg. During the summers of 1899 and 1900 Timoshenko spent practicing on construction of Volchansk- Kupyansk rail road so that he could learn all the important types of construction. His student years coincided with the start of political quickening in Russia manifested primarily in student disturbances. In the summer of 1900, the international exposition opened in Paris and he went as a student who knew foreign language to serve at the ways of communications exhibit. With 200 roubles and a free ticket Timoshenko set out from Petersburg for Paris. This was his first trip abroad. Upon graduation from the institute, Timoshenko was faced with a year of compulsory military service at the time when most of the youths opposed military service. Military service not only afforded him an opportunity to become better acquainted with low class people but gymnastics and living in a tent in summer improved his physical health. After military service Timoshenko got married to Aledxandra Archangleskya in 1902 who was a medical student. At that time he worked at the mechanics laboratory with a salary of 100 roubles a month. He became well acquainted with testing machines and soon saw that apart from learning the techniques of mechanical testing of building materials he could accomplish nothing at the laboratory. Timoshenko felt that for a scientific work a more thorough grounding in mathematics and mechanics was needed and he tried to use every opportunity available at the institute to expand his education. Then he joined The Petersburg Polytechnic in 1903. In 1904 he travelled to Europe with a specific purpose of becoming better acquainted with German technical school and their teaching methods. Timoshenko took interest in reading Rayleigh's book The Theory of Sound and he was particularly captivated by the approximate methods of calculating vibration frequencies of complex structures. In 1907-1908 he gave a full course on Strength of materials and later on published in lithographic form. He investigated a number of new problems involving the stability of compressed bar. In connection with the Quebec Bridge disaster in Canada he started working on the theory of stability of composite beams and found simpler methods of solving problems. In 1908, in addition to teaching duties, Timoshenko was given administrative responsibility which interested him little. In 1912 when he went to England and found that the lab facility at Cambridge University was poorer than those in German laboratories.

The books of Lord Raleigh exerted a large influence on the development of Timoshenko's scientific work. In 1913 Timoshenko became Professor of Ministry of Ways of Communications and Electrical Engineering Institute. Then he joined as Professor at Zagreb Polytechnic and he continued up to 1922 and for some time Timoshenko worked at Westing House. In the U.S, Timoshenko felt the thoroughness of the training in mathematics and basic engineering subjects gave him enormous advantage over Americans especially in solving nonstereotyped problems. He also observed that there is a good communication between scientists and engineers in America than in Europe. In 1927 a special Chair of Research in Mechanics was offered to Timoshenko. His lectures on Applied Mechanics at the University of Michigan attracted a large number of students from other departments and also young teachers. In Michigan summer session in applied Mechanics was instituted and many luminaries from Europe like Prandtl, Southwell, Westergaard and Karman participated. During this period he published a number of books such as Strength of Materials, Theory of Elasticity and Elastic Stability. In 1936 he moved to Stanford University and during this period he published Engineering Mechanics, Theory of Plates and Shells, Theory of Structures and Advanced Dynamics. He wrote his last book on History of Strength of Materials where he traced the history from Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo to the present. The Stanford University laboratory of Engineering Mechanics was named after him. He was elected to a number of many reputed Societies such as National Academy of Science, U.S, and the Royal Society, London. He received many honorary doctoral degrees from various universities such as Lehigh, Zurich Tech Institute and Glasgow University. In 1935, American Society of Mechanical Engineers conferred upon him the Worcester Reed Warner Medal for achievement in the field of Mechanics. Stephen Timoshenko enriched the lives of thousands of his students and colleagues during his many years of active work. He is known to many as a teacher, writer, researcher and adviser and he can be called as the father of engineering mechanics.