Ferdinand P. Beer (Deceased),
Lehigh University E. Russell Johnston, Jr.,
University of Connecticut John T. DeWolf,
University of Connecticut
ISBN: 0072980907 Copyright year: 2006
About the Authors
As publishers of the books written by Ferd Beer and Russ Johnston, we
are often asked how they happen to write the books together, with
one of them at Lehigh and the other at the University of Connecticut.
The answer to this question is simple. Russ Johnston’s first teaching
appointment was in the Department of Civil Engineering and
Mechanics at Lehigh University. There he met Ferd Beer, who had
joined that department two years earlier and was in charge of the courses
in mechanics. Born in France and educated in France and Switzerland
(he held an M.S. degree from the Sorbonne and an Sc.D. degree in the
field of theoretical mechanics from the University of Geneva), Ferd had
come to the United States after serving in the French army during the
early part of World War II and had taught for four years at Williams
College in the Williams-MIT joint arts and engineering program. Born
in Philadelphia, Russ had obtained a B.S. degree in civil engineering
from the University of Delaware and an Sc.D. degree in the field of
structural engineering from MIT.
Ferd was delighted to discover that the young man who had been
hired chiefly to teach graduate structural engineering courses was not
only willing but eager to help him reorganize the mechanics courses.
Both believed that these courses should be taught from a few basic principles
and that the various concepts involved would be best understood
and remembered by the students if they were presented to them in a
graphic way. Together they wrote lecture notes in statics and dynamics,
to which they later added problems they felt would appeal to future
engineers, and soon they produced the manuscript of the first edition
of Mechanics for Engineers. The second edition of Mechanics for
Engineers and the first edition of Vector Mechanics for Engineers found
Russ Johnston at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the next editions
at the University of Connecticut. In the meantime, both Ferd and Russ
had assumed administrative responsibilities in their departments, and
both were involved in research, consulting, and supervising graduate
students—Ferd in the area of stochastic processes and random vibrations,
and Russ in the area of elastic stability and structural analysis
and design. However, their interest in improving the teaching of the
basic mechanics courses had not subsided, and they both taught
sections of these courses as they kept revising their texts and began
writing together the manuscript of the first edition of Mechanics of
Materials.
Ferd and Russ’s contributions to engineering education earned them
a number of honors and awards. They were presented with the Western
Electric Fund Award for excellence in the instruction of engineering
students by their respective regional sections of the American Society
for Engineering Education, and they both received the Distinguished
Educator Award from the Mechanics Division of the same
society. In 1991 Russ received the Outstanding Civil Engineer Award from
the Connecticut Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers,
and in 1995 Ferd was awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering
degree by Lehigh University.
John T. DeWolf, Professor of Civil Engineering at the University
of Connecticut, joined the Beer and Johnston team as an author on the
second edition of Mechanics of Materials. John holds a B.S. degree in
civil engineering from the University of Hawaii and M.E. and Ph.D.
degrees in structural engineering from Cornell University. His research
interests are in the area of elastic stability, bridge monitoring, and structural
analysis and design. He is a member of the Connecticut Board of
Examiners for Professional Engineers.
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2006 McGraw-Hill Higher Education