Giordano Riccati

Giordano Riccati or Jordan Riccati (fl. 1782) was the first experimental mechanician to study material elastic moduli as we understand them today. His 1782 paper^[1] on determining the relative Young's moduli of steel and brass using flexural vibrations predated Thomas Young's 1807 paper on the subject of moduli.^[2] The ratio that Riccati found was^[3]

$\frac{E_{\mbox{steel}}}{E_{\mbox{brass}}} = 2.06$

Even though the experiments were performed more than 200 years ago, this value is remarkably close to accepted values found in engineering handbooks in 2007.

Giordano Riccati was the son of the theoretical mechanician Jacopo Riccati and brother of Jesuit mathematician and physicist Vincenzo Riccati

References

1. G. Riccati, 1782, Delle vibrazioni sonore dei cilindri, Mem. mat. fis. soc. Italiana, vol. 1, pp 444-525.
2. Truesdell, Clifford A., 1960, The Rational Mechanics of Flexible or Elastic Bodies, 1638-1788: Introduction to Leonhardi Euleri Opera Omnia, vol. X and XI, Seriei Secundae. Orell Fussli.
3. Bell,J. F., 1971, The experimental foundations of solid mechanics, Handbuch der Physik VIa/I, Spinger-Verlag, Berlin.