John Argyris



But before I drift away from Glenn I cannot do this without a mention of our late chairman John Argyris also, who unfortunately passed away in April 2004. John, whilst with us was debatably the equivalent of Glenn Seaborg in the engineering world. He had pioneered and invented in many ways the Finite Element Method (the precedence given to him by Professor Ray Clough, acknowledged in engineering circles as possibly America’s greatest structural engineer, in his 1960 publication where he first coined the phrase, the ‘Finite Element Method’). This invention has literally revolutionised the engineering world and how it undertakes its structural analysis from the space shuttle and aeronautics to ships, cars, buildings, bridges and all engineering design elements. The FEM is now so important that it is also used in the medical sciences and astrophysics to respectfully determine the stresses in the human body and the forces present in the very universe itself.

In early 1999 therefore when both Glenn and John were still alive, the WIF had debatably at its helm the world’s foremost scientist and engineer.

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