Cracow, Poland

Computational Mechanics
(Mechanics and Machine Design)

Bachelor's - engineer
Table of contents

Computational Mechanics at PK Kraków

Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: computer science
Kind of studies: full-time studies

Definitions and quotes

Mechanics
Mechanics (Greek μηχανική) is that area of science concerned with the behaviour of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment. The scientific discipline has its origins in Ancient Greece with the writings of Aristotle and Archimedes (see History of classical mechanics and Timeline of classical mechanics). During the early modern period, scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, and Newton laid the foundation for what is now known as classical mechanics. It is a branch of classical physics that deals with particles that are either at rest or are moving with velocities significantly less than the speed of light. It can also be defined as a branch of science which deals with the motion of and forces on objects.
Mechanics
Rational mechanics must be the science of the motions which result from any forces, and of the forces which are required for any motions, accurately propounded and demonstrated. For many things induce me to suspect, that all natural phenomena may depend upon some forces by which the particles of bodies are either drawn towards each other, and cohere, or repel and recede from each other: and these forces being hitherto unknown, philosophers have pursued their researches in vain. And I hope that the principles expounded in this work will afford some light, either to this mode of philosophizing, or to some mode which is more true.
Isaac Newton Preface (8 May 1686). Preface, translation in William Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences (1837).
Mechanics
To the art of mechanics is owing all sorts of instruments to work with, all engines of war, ships, bridges, mills, curious roofs and arches, stately theatres, columns, pendent galleries, and all other grand works in building. Also clocks, watches, jacks, chariots, carts and carriages, and even the wheel-barrow. Architecture, navigation, husbandry, and military affairs, owe their invention and use to this art.
William Emerson (1754/73) The Principles of Mechanics. Preface; Cited in: R.S. Woolhouse (1988) Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Essays in Honour of Gerd Buchdahl. p. 29.
Mechanics
All this, the positive and physical essence of mechanics, which makes its chief and highest interest for a student of nature, is in existing treatises completely buried and concealed beneath a mass of technical considerations.
Ernst Mach The Science of Mechanics (1893) Preface to the first edition, , p. vii.
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