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JAMES R
. ~
1 936-1 991
MELCHER
BY THOMAS H. LEE AND MARKUS ZAHN
JAMES R MELCHER an engineer and scientist widely respected
r his practical applications of the principles of continuum
electromechanics en c! a member of the faculty of the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1962, died on January
5, 1991, at the age of fifty-four.
Professor Melcher was elected to the National Academy of Engi-
neering in February 1982. At the time of his death, he was the
director of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic
Systems at MIT and was the Julius A. Stratton Professor of Elec-
trical Engineering and Physics. He was a member of the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).
Professor Melcher was noted for work that defined the field of
continuum electromechanics and for leading in its engineering
and scientific applications to human needs. He was inventor or
coinventor of twelve patents.
As a broadly interdisciplinary engineering science, continuum
electromechanics draws upon electromagnetics, fluid and solid
mechanics, heat transfer, and physical chemistry. Professor
Melcher was a leader in its application in a variety of ways,
including air-pollution control, energy conversion, plasma phys-
ics, the measurement of fluid flows, the control of the thickness
of sheet glass, the generation of electricity by means of the flow
of fluids in electric anti magnetic fields, electric power appara-
tus, and physiology.
127
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128
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
A native of Giard, Iowa, where he was born July 5, 1936,
Professor Melcher came to MIT from Iowa State University,
where he had received his B.S. in electrical engineering in 1957
and M.S. in nuclear engineering in 1958. He received his Ph.D.
at MIT in 1962. His 1971-1972 sabbatical at Churchill College,
Cambriclge, England, was with Sir Geoffrey I. Taylor at the
Cavendish.
Considered an outstanding educator he received the Out-
standing Teacher Award from the New England Section of the
American Society for Engineering Education in 1969 and the
MIT Graduate Student Teaching Award in 1978 Professor
Melcher was noted for his dynamic lectures and as a leader in
teaching electromagnetic field theory. He was a criticaljudge of
the quality of his students' work, but he did not spare effort and
concern in helping his students reach the high standards that he
set for himself and them. He deeply affected his students' lives,
careers, and values.
His first book, Field-Coupled Surface Waves, an outgrowth of his
doctoral thesis, was published in 1963. In the 1960s he coau-
thored a series of three books titled Electromechanical Dynamics,
accompanied becalms. His book titled ContinuumElectromechanics,
a graduate text and encyclopedic research reference, was pub
fished in 1981 and remains the definitive text in the field. In 1989
he was coauthor of another text, ElectromagneticFields and Energy,
which includes a set of videotapes of lecture demonstrations. His
films, tapes, and texts are in wide use at universities throughout
the world.
He was a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers and a member of the American Physical Society, the
American Chemical Society, and the American Society of Me-
chanical Engineers.
Professor Melcher's work was recognized with many awards
throughout his career, starting with the First Mark Mills Award
of the American Nuclear Society (1958), given for his master's
thesis; a Guggenheim Fellowship ~ 1 971 ); Young Alumnus Award
(1971) and Professional Achievement Citation in Engineering
(1981), both from Iowa State University; and numerous best-
paper awards.
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J
JAMES R. MELCHER
129
He was the son of a minister ant! hac3 a high sense of commit-
ment to important social issues in both his professional and
personal life. He felt strongly that MIT in general en cl the EECS
department in particular should make a greater effort to obtain
research funding from industrial sources rather than the Depart-
ment of Defense. Jim was an activist trying to make MIT a leader
in addressing national problems, and he educates! his students
for theirwider responsibility to the nation. Unlike many academ-
ics, Jim tried to understand the real-life problems of the inclus-
trial world (and he taught his students to do the same) . He had
two simultaneous objectives in his industrial research: solving
near-term pressing technical problems for the industrial spon-
sors while at the same time advancing engineering science. He
was one of the founders of the MIT Faculty Newsletter and often
spoke out if he felt that insufficient attention was paid to matters
of principle and integrity. There are many examples of his
commitment to be a spokesman for his strongly held beliefs: his
work with the Southern New England Conference of the United
Methodist Church on a resolution condemning militarism and
calling for the conversion of industry from weapons manufac-
ture to peaceful uses, his discussion with engineering colleagues
at MIT about the implications of Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI) funding, his support for and work on the MIT committees
on Lincoln Laboratory, and his concern about the impact of
military funding on education and research.
In 1986 Professor Melcher was one offour university research-
ers who made public at a Washington, D.C., news conference a
petition signed by more than thirty-seven hundred senior faculty
members across the nation, who pledged to do no research for
the SDI program. Even during his last days, it was important to
him to complete an article entitled "America's Perestroika" that
compared his own personal deteriorating health to the poor
health of the country due to the unwillingness of our leaders to
honestly define and address the problems of our present way of
life. The paper discussed such topics as the need for a national
energy policy and examined the role of the U.S. military in our
budgetary and competitiveness problems. An edited version of
this paper was published in the April 1991 Technology Review
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
alumni pages. Jim followed the NAE studies on "National Inter-
ests in an Age of Global Technology" closely. One of us (T. H.
Lee), as chairman of that study, had numerous discussions with
Jim. He made significant contributions on the subject at the
Irvine, California, conference.
One cannot know Jim Melcher without mentioning his com-
muting nine miles each way by bicycle from Lexington to MIT
every working day of the year, rain or snow. He experimented
with all kinds of means to make a bike navigable in snow and on
ice. He biked in part because it helped him in his fight with
diabetes, but it was also a personal way for him to demonstrate
the need for a national energy policy of nonpolluting energy self-
suff~ciency. It had the secondary benefit of attracting to his
laboratory kindred-spirited students who had similar values,
resulting in a bicycle as the laboratory symbol on their sweatshirts.
Jim Melcher profoundly affected the careers of his colleagues
and students. He lived a life of purpose and scope and faced his
painful illness with courage. His wisdom on technical and hu-
man matters will be missed by all.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
continuum electromechanics
