1. A brief history

Every material object is built through mechanical intervention, from the invention of the wheel to the Airbus A380 (figure 1 ).

Historically, mechanics (from the Latin mechanica) is the combination of organs capable of producing or transmitting movement. The first application of the spring was in the bow and arrow, over 10,000 years ago. In the century before the Christian era, Heron of Alexandria built the éolipyle, a steam-powered toy operating like a jet turbine (figure 2 ).

Before becoming an industry, mechanics was...