A few points that might be of general interest:

1. The dates: The date of Huygens' first written down material, which was orally presented to the French Academy of Sciences, is 1678---in contrast to the oft-quoted date of 1690. 1690 was the year of the first, French, publication of these notes (plus other material) in the form of a book.

Attached is an intriguing commentary on the scientific method through an example, written by my good friend, Luc Tartar. The specific example is that of trying to understand what 'light' might be, especially from a mathematician's point of view. The mathematician in this case is an extremely talented one, who also happens to actually understand a whole lot of physics and mechanics.

I am posting it especially for our younger members on imechanica, since I think there are interesting things to learn here. If you are an engineer or a physicist, it will not necessarily be a comfortable read, both on matters technical and philosophical. But my personal point of view is that not everything worth learning has to be within one's comfort zone. Being open-minded about learning, and recognizing when there is something to be learnt, is one of the best habits we can develop. One does not have to agree with all that is said, but the greatest intellectual progress happens when a collection of sincere, talented people operate at the boundary of their individual comfort zones - not necessarily agreeing, but definitely learning from each other.

So, enjoy!

Elsevier is pleased to announce that Professor Sia Nemat-Nasser will be presenting 'Managing Stress Waves Over Multi-frequencies by Micro-architectural Design of Materials', the Mechanics Research Communications Elsevier Distinguished Lecture (sponsored by Elsevier and the New Jersey Institute of Technology Granular Science Laboratory). The lecture will take place in the Guttenberg Information Technologies Center, NJIT, on Monday April 18, 2011, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Full details are available at

http://www.elsevier.com/framework_products/promis_misc/mrclecture.pdf

Hi everybody,

I want to simulate water waves using abaqus. I want design a good reef, in order to improve the waves to surf.

I'm Abaqus user (plasticity, elasticity, heat transfer...) but I never simulate water an less waves. Can someone help me or give me some indications to start???

Thanks a lot

You are cordially invited to participate in the Symposium on the Mechanics of Electromagnetic Materials and Structures, the 5th International Conference on Nonlinear Mechanics (ICNM-V), to be held in Shanghai, China, June 11-14, 2007.  You may find more information at the website of the conference.

The symposium topics include piezoelectricity, ferroelectricity, magnetoelasticity, electromagnetic fluids and various applications in engineering and technology, but are not limited to the above. Experimental, theoretical, and computational studies are all welcome.

Please e-mail your one-page abstract(s) to any of us listed below. We look forward to hearing from you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at

Professor Ji Wang, Ningbo University, wangji@nbu.edu.cn

Professor Yuantai Hu, Central South University, hudeng@263.net

Professor Jiashi Yang, University of Nebraska, jyang1@unl.edu

Professor Daining Fang, Tsinghua University, fangdn@tsinghua.edu.cn

Submission of abstract: as soon as possible.

Notification of acceptance: Nov. 1, 2006

Submission of final paper(s) for the conference proceedings: Jan. 1, 2007