Zhilin P.A. “A.I. Lurie — works on mechanics” // Proceedings of XXVIII Summer School - Conference “Advanced Problems in Mechanics”, St.-Petersburg, Russia, 2001. P. 1-13.

A.I. Lurie — works on mechanics

A man cannot choose his birthday or birth place. However, time and habitation country significantly influence upon the making of a person and determine the character of his activity. Nevertheless, at all times and in all countries the individuals are born, who are realized as self-independent and self-sufficient creatures. Such persons play the role of “evolution catalysts” for the society, into which they are involved. The problems solved by them are never accidental but determined by the higher necessities of the society. The main feature of a realized individual is a capacity of a person not only to perceive intuitively the society higher necessities but to take them as a guide to the action. Therefore, this is impossible to make a correct evaluation of a contribution of any person into the evolution of a community (either of its certain part) if one does not realize clearly the state of this community and its necessities at the evolution stage considered.
Lurie2 (9K)
A.I.Lurie
No doubt, Anatoly Isakovich Lurie had realized himself as a self-independent individual, whose versatile fruits of work we sense so distinctly. The aim of this presentation is a discussion of A.I. Lurie's contribution into evolution of mechanics in Russia. A.I. Lurie had began his self-independent investigations in mechanics in 1925 all at once on graduating from the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of Leningrad Polytechnical Institute. Think of Russia being in 1925! The previous decade resulted in an extremely hard state for Russia. The First World War, the October Socialist Revolution, and, finally, the fratricidal civil war, which is the worst and the most dangerous among all kinds of wars. All this had led to the scarcity and dissociation of the Russian brain-power to nearly complete destruction of relatively weak industry together with the total absence of finances for purchase of needed equipment. In addition, Russia was, actually, in a complete isolation from the all-world community. Consequently, development of the native industry became one of immediate tasks. Traditionally, only ship building was rather well-developed, but other fields of industry (such as mechanical engineering, power engineering, turbine construction, instrument-making and aircraft industries, etc.), they all were present in embryo. Everything mentioned above had to be built up anew. First of all, tens of thousands of skilled engineers were to be trained. It should be taken into account, that these skilled engineers had to be prepared from a relatively uneducated medium, since schools worked under abnormal conditions in 1914-1922 as well. For training a skilled engineer brain-power competent specialists and, also, text-books were needed. It cannot be said that there were no scientists in the field of mechanics in Russia.
Nikolai (11K)
E.L.Nicolai
Suffice it to recall such first-class scientists as N.E. Zhukovsky, I.G. Bubnov, I.V. Meschersky, A.A. Fridman, A.N. Krylov, P.F. Papkovich, E.L. Nicolai, and many others. However, they were extremely few in number for such a vast country as Russia. As for text-books on mechanics for universities, they were actually absent. Just then, the generation of Russian scientists, to which A.I. Lurie belonged, had to start the work. Creative work of the above-mentioned scientists received a high appraisal by the launching of the first in the world artifical satellite on October 4th, 1957, along with the fact that to 1960 the technical education in Russia was recognized as one of the best in the world by the international community. On graduating from the Polytechnical Institute A.I. Lurie hold the post of a lecturer at the chair “Theoretical Mechanics” of the institute. Hereafter, A.I. Lurie began his persistent research work. It is necessary to emphasize that A.I. Lurie was utterly interested in various fields of mechanics and of control theory. It is accounted for by the fact that A.I. Lurie was tightly concerned with organizations engaged in development and production of new technique. Among the organizations, Leningradskii Metallicheskii Zavod (a Leningrad Metal Plant), Osoboe Tekhnicheskoe Byuro (the Special Technical Department), and Osoboe Konstruktorskoe Byuro (the Special Constructor Department) to be pointed out in the first place. As it is known, creation of a new technique is accompanied by numerous problems associated with mechanics and the control theory. Over the post-war years, contacts of A.I. Lurie with industrial organizations were essentially widened. Multiform demands of practice made the scientist to perform his investigations simultaneously in various directions. Therefore, in describing the works of A.I. Lurie on mechanics we ought to divide the works into separate groups and to break the chronological succession. As for investigation on the control theory, into which A.I. Lurie made a valuable contribution, they represent the subject of a separate consideration.