Despite the untimely and totally unexpected death of Alan Pengelly, who was organising the Institute of the Physics conference on "Engineering and Physics - Synergy for Success", it has been decided to go ahead with the conference as planned on October 5th 2006, as a tribute to his work, under the chairmanship of "Eureka" magazine Group Technical Editor Dr Tom Shelley.
The conference was conceived by Alan and Tom over the 2006 Easter weekend as a means of bringing engineers and physicists together in an effort to encourage the application of a real scientific approach, including advanced modelling, to optimising and evaluating the designs of new products and possible radical new methods of obtaining energy from the environment that are currently beyond the capabilities of commercially available software packages or the knowledge base of most engineers.
Mr Alan E.S. Pengelly, F.InstP, F.I.M.M.M., C.Phys., C.Eng, who formerly worked in the UK steel and aluminium industries, was a tireless campaigner for the cause of physics education as a means of properly preparing engineers for useful careers. He once wrote:"Which serious physicist does not look back in admiration to his own teacher? If a child is clever, determined and supported by parents, he can win an adequate start for a Physics/Maths career. Then he will be motivated into the higher levels of the disciplines; research or industry.....But, as we all know, many (most?) schools offer baby science because proper physics and maths are seen as so hard that some pupils will fail - and we can't have that can we?"
This was in addition to being a biomaterials consultant with Technicon (Surrey, UK), with his efforts to advance the cause of better hip and joint replacements, and developing and occasionally supplying his own micro water turbines and also serving on the Engineering Physics Committee of the Institute of Physics. He continued to do all these things despite his nearly 80 years.
Some of the more outstanding developments to be revealed at the conference will be described in "Eureka". In addition, the submitted papers will be published by the Institute of Physics. For more information see: Engineering and Physics - Synergy for Success