Who invented Young's Modulus?

摘要

In science and engineering, we owe much of the knowledge we take for granted to a few original thinkers. Some of them are quite famous: Archimedes and his bath; Galileo; Newton, who gave us gravity and the laws of force and motion; Euler who solved the problem of classic strut buckling; Rankine who gave us earth pressure theory and also thermodynamics; and Coulomb who gave us another earth pressure theory and also the unit of electric charge. But who was the 'Young' of 'Young's Modulus'? Was he a noted engineer in days gone by, or was he an obscure loner who made the study of elasticity his life's work? Who was he, and what else did he do with his life?