The Polish Strength

Abstract

Poland is a country that suffered much from it various neighbors for almost 200 years. Having finally reached a certain stability after World War II, but under the acute and “benevolent” control of its big eastern brother, the Polish mechanics community succeeded in developing a remarkable research activity. Such activity justifies this independent chapter, all the more that the author knows well the country, having started his friendly visits there in the 1970s. No doubt that this development, out of proportion with the size of the country, is due to the excellence and hard work of a selected group of engineers, physicists, and applied mathematicians, among them W. Olszak, W. Nowacki, S. Kaliski, A. Sawszuk, and H. Zorski, and their disciples. These people rebuilt Polish mechanics on a ground that was solidly established early in the Twentieth century (by scientists such as Huber, Zaremba, Natanson, Zorawski, and Banach) as recalled at the beginning of the chapter. As exposed next, the main subject matters entertained in the second half of the Twentieth century have been plasticity, thermoelasticity, coupled fields (electroelasticity), wave dynamics, and generalized continuum mechanics in its different avatars. This undoubtedly received world applause. The positive role played by the Polish Academy of Sciences with its research centres is emphasized.