Talk:Biomechanics

Broaden the entry
I think that the entry for biomechanics needs to be substantially broadened. Currently, there is a lot of interesting information, but it seems relly human-centric. The field has practitioners working on plants, on insect flight, on marine filter feeders in addition to the large contingent working on human locomotion and fluid systems. I agree with the suggestion that it needs a more general introduction that can encompass these things, and the rest can be subdivided. mooseo 21:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm suspicious of this tensegrity stuff. Biomechanics is a real academic discipline with meetings and text books and courses named Biomechanics 101 etc. I doubt Buckminster Fuller comes up in that context. But I'll leave it to someone who's actually studied biomechanics to cull or delineate the material that doesn't pertain to what biologists and exercise physiologists mean by biomechanics.

I'm not sure where the tensegrity connection is. Perhaps the editor meant that tissues remodel in response to applied loads? Growth and remodeling is supported by recent investigations in the open literature. Besides that, I propose that more attention be given to the continuum level solid/fluid mechanics and computational modeling of tissue behavior. It is a rather gross oversimplification to limit the article to limbs and the kinematics of entire organisms.

Proposed Addition
Additional information on Biotribology in relation to joint replacements. I am considering adding more to this article in relation to tribology to study the wear on artificial joints. Some information is already included, but I believe it could be expanded to be more informative. Any thoughts on this? Magggey (talk) 00:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia version 1.0 compliance
Our goal should be to make this article comply with Wikipedia version 1.0 standards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team

There is a decent amount of material, but it looks a bit disorganized. I tried to rearrange a few things last night and add some content, but it still needs more work. In particular, the introduction will need to be more general and touch on more areas. We can save the nitty gritty math and physiology details for subheadings for the people who are really interested in that stuff.

Cleanup
I just added the cleanup template to the article. It has some good stuff, but a lot of the sections belong as articles (and many already are). This article should focus on the core of "Biomechanics" and let other articles talk about continuum mechanics or non-Newtonian fluids. —Ben FrantzDale 01:42, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

"Biomechanics" in fiction
Should something be added about "biomechanical" often referring to creatures that are a combination of organic and mechanical in science fiction? urutapu 05:39, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't really think so. I'm not a major sci-fi fan, but I was under the impression that was usually referred to as a Cyborg, which already has a pretty extensive entry. As someone mentioned above, biomechanics is an actual academic discipline mooseo 21:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, "biomechanical" refers to organic objects that have a mechanical or semi-mechanical appearance, such as the derelict and the Aliens, both of which were designed by H.R. Giger. The closest page to "Biomechanics in fiction" currently available would have to be the Biomechanoid page.--Jesse Mulkey 16:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Somebody messed around with the page
"Biomechanics is the research and analysis of man and living organisms "

removed vulgarities --Venny85 18:33, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

"understanding of performance in athletic events through modeling, simulation, stimulation, gesticulation, mastication and measurement. and jamie annandale is cool" - removed "and jamie annandale is cool". 216.167.172.78 (talk) 06:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Meyerhold's Biomechanics (Theatre)
There is no page for that experimental theatrical concept. It needs an article created about it and should be added to the disambiguation page. 216.167.172.78 (talk) 06:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposed project of interest - organismal biomechanics
Hi all, I'm trying to start a Wikiproject to cover Organismal Biomechanics, and I was wondering if anyone else would be interested? Articles such as animal locomotion. gait, muscle, and similar would be our targets. See my userpage for a list of what I'm planning to work on, including some truly awful articles in desperate need of attention. See proposal page at WikiProject_Council/Proposals. I'll keep anyone who signs up updated via their userpages until I get a project page made. Help of all kinds is appreciated, from brain dumps to wikifying, grammar and dealing with references. Mokele (talk) 01:38, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Section on journals & societies?
I was just thinking, should there be a section on this page for journals & societies that frequently publish biomechanics? Some are obvious from the name, like the Journal of Biomechanics, but others are less so - Journal of Experimental Biology and Integrative & Comparative Biology both publish a lot of comparative biomech stuff. Mokele (talk) 16:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

History
Seems the article is remiss not to mention Bert Fung's contribution to the field. I would consider him a pioneer. GetAgrippa (talk) 03:05, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to include this information in the article! --Rudolf Hellmuth (talk) 08:49, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Antiquity section
The article says that Aristotle wrote De Motu Animalium, or On the Motion of Animals. His article makes no mention of this book title in either language; additionally, the title De Motu Animalium is Latin, not Greek, and Aristotle's no Roman. Was this Latin title later added/associated with it by a Roman, or does this need to be changed? I don't know the answer myself. Raien (talk) 05:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Transcribed from user talk page
Aristotle and Borelli both wrote books entitled "De Motu Animalium", but Aristotle had nothing to do with biomechanics. Borelli is regarded as the father of biomechanics- just look at his page on Wikipedia for plenty of references. Look at the picture at the top of the biomechanics page (which was taken from this book) or look at PubMed- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2698592. Please stop reverting this change to incorrectly attribute this book to Aristotle.

Brian Schulz (talk) 19:12, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have already provided two citations at the end of that sentence, from a textbook and a Presidential Lecture at an American Society of Biomechanics conference, both of which specifically credit him with making the first contribution to biomechanics. Maybe Borelli is the father of modern biomechanics? And this is the first time I have reverted the change. RockMagnetist (talk) 20:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to be snippy, but I had made this change a while ago and it got reverted without any notification. Please note that the reference you cited to the ASB talk does not say that Aristotle "wrote the first book on biomechanics" as is mentioned in the Wikipedia article. It says that Aristotle merely "wrote the first book called 'De Motu Animalium'". This is a key distinction that makes the article incorrect. I can't access the other book you cited from here, but I can find excerpts from Aristotle's book- "It teaches how intentionality in animals is translated physiologically into action. Although most of its arguments are also found in other treatises, it contains two novelties: it says that there must be a single unmoved source of the soul's action, in the heart, and that there imagination and desire cause a disturbance of pneuma, which transmits motions to the limbs." from http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_the_history_of_philosophy/summary/v020/20.1balme.html. This indicates that Aristotle's De Motu Animalium was more about philosophy than biomechanics. Also note that the PubMed reference I attached states "De Motu Animalium seemingly constitutes the very first treatise on biomechanics. The author, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-1679), was professor of mathematics in Pisa". I don't know if you can cite this, but I've been to the annual meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics 7 of the past 11 years and have attended the Borelli Lecture every time. These lectures are not available online or accessible anywhere, but every awardee has called Borelli the father of biomechanics (not modern biomechanics) and said that he wrote the first book on biomechanics. I don't recall any of them ever mentioning Aristotle.

Brian Schulz (talk) 13:14, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the article's talk page is the proper forum for this discussion.


 * I'll quote from the articles that I have cited in that section. All the quotes are accessible on the Web. You can view Fung's book at Amazon.
 * "Aristotle might be considered the first biomechanician. He wrote the first book called "De Motu Animalium" - On the Movement of Animals"

- Martin(1999)


 * "Aristotle was probably the first biomechanician. He wrote the first book related to movement, De Motu Animalium (English translation: On the Movement of Animals) and actually viewed the bodies of animals as mechanical systems"

- Kippers et al. (2013)


 * "The earliest books containing the concepts of biomechanics were probably the Greek classic On the Parts of Animals by Aristotle ... Aristotle presents a comprehensive description of the anatomy and function of internal organs. His analysis of the peristaltic motion of the ureter in carrying urine from the kidney to the bladder is remarkably accurate. But he mistook the heart as a respiratory organ, probably because in his dissection of corpses of war a day or two after the battles, he never saw blood in the heart."

- Fung (1993)


 * When I first read the third quote (from a work on biomechanics that is itself a classic), I carelessly assumed that On the Parts of Animals was a different translation of De Motu Animalium, but it's actually a different book. It's very clear from the third quote that Aristotle's did some real experimental work.


 * There will always be debate on who is the "father" of a given discipline or its first contributor, and you're welcome to add citations questioning the importance of Aristotle's work. But regardless, changing Aristotle to Borelli in the Antiquity subsection is a bad idea because it leaves the impression that Borelli lived in the ancient world and that the rest of the paragraph refers to his work. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

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Strang writing
This page has sever problems, with overlong prose and strangely worded writing. It sounds copy-pasted from a student essay.

Examples: In 2022, computational mechanics goes far beyond pure mechanics, and involves other physical actions: chemistry, heat and mass transfer, electric and magnetic stimuli and many others. ... ''The next major biomechanic would not be around until 1452, with the birth of Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci was an artist and mechanic and engineer. He contributed to mechanics and military and civil engineering projects. He had a great understanding of science and mechanics and studied anatomy in a mechanics context. He analyzed muscle forces and movements and studied joint functions.'' ... The next major bio-mechanic, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, embraced Descartes' mechanical philosophy and studied walking, running, jumping, the flight of birds, the swimming of fish, and even the piston action of the heart within a mechanical framework

There's too many examples, and the page repeats itself and largely sounds like a story. The concept of what biomechanics is is also repeated several times. If someone could clean up the article that would be helpful. Largely it just needs to be more clear and concise. Language Boi (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Also: This is just my opinion, not an objective statement. Take this comment lightlyLanguage Boi (talk) 18:23, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Language Boi I agree, I read on the Galileo section, it wrote so much about how he got into biomechanics, but it is not a page on biography, it should be about biomechanics instead. Wargreymon2022 (talk) 11:51, 23 September 2023 (UTC)