Abstract
PROF. A. H. GIBSON is to retire from the Beyer chair of engineering in the University of Manchester in September. He will then have occupied this famous chain for twenty-nine years, with a distinction well worthy of the traditions created by his master, Osherne Reynolds. Both at Manchester and in inspiring re-organisation of the Engineering Department of the University of St. Andrews between 1909 and 1920, Prof. Gibson has maintained a firm belief in Reynolds's conception of the aims and methods of university education in engineering : to teach fundamentals and "the physical laws on which mechanics as a science are based" —and to eschew 'spoonfeeding'. His original work is described in an impressive series of books and papers remarkable for the clarity of his writing, the directness of his arguments and the skill of his experimenting. A very few titles taken at random reflect the range of his interests : "On the Depression of the Filament of Maximum Velocity in a Stream flowing through an Open Channel" ; "On the Local Intensification of Draught produced in a Horizontal Air Current by the Presence of an Inclined Rod" ; "A Study of the Circular-Arc Bow Girder" ; "The Behaviour of Bodies Floating in a Free or a Forced Vortex"; "Piston Temperatures and Heat Flow in High Speed Petrol Engines" ; "Tidal Model of the Severn Estuary".
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Engineering at Manchester : Prof. A. H. Gibson. Nature 163, 355 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/163355a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/163355a0