Charles Inglis (1875–1952) was a British civil engineer who has been described as the greatest teacher of engineering of his time. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and then spent two years with the engineering firm run by John Wolfe-Barry before returning to King's College as a lecturer. Working with Professors James Alfred Ewing and Bertram Hopkinson, he made several important studies into the effects of vibration on structures and defects on the strength of plate steel. Inglis served in the Royal Engineers during the First World War and invented the Inglis Bridge, a reusable steel bridging system (example pictured) – the precursor to the Bailey bridge of the Second World War. In 1916 he was placed in charge of bridge design and supply at the War Office and, with Giffard Le Quesne Martel, pioneered the use of temporary bridges with tanks. He returned to Cambridge University after the war as head of the Engineering Department, which became the largest in the university and one of the best regarded engineering schools in the world. Knighted in 1945, he spent his later years developing his theories on the education of engineers and wrote a textbook on applied mechanics.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Inglis_(engineer)> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 863: Byzantine–Arab Wars: The Byzantine Empire decisively defeated the Emirate of Melitene in the Battle of Lalakaon, beginning the era of Byzantine ascendancy. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lalakaon> 1651: English Parliamentarian forces under Oliver Cromwell won the Battle of Worcester, the final battle of the Third English Civil War. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Worcester> 1783: Great Britain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)> 1941: The Holocaust: SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch first used the pesticide Zyklon B to execute Soviet POWs en masse at Auschwitz; eventually it was used to kill about 1.2 million people. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B> 1991: A fire killed 25 people locked inside a burning chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, US. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_chicken_processing_plant_fire> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: chirality: The phenomenon, in chemistry, physics and mathematics, in which an object differs from its mirror image. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chirality> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: How strange it seems that education, in practice, so often means suppression: that instead of leading the mind outward to the light of day it crowds things in upon it that darken and weary it. Yet evidently the true object of education, now as ever, is to develop the capabilities of the head and of the heart. --Louis Sullivan <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Louis_Sullivan> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
