International Society for the Interaction of Mechanics and Mathematics


The International Society for the Interaction of Mechanics and Mathematics is an association of professional mathematicians and mechanicians dedicated to promoting the beneficial influence of each of these disciplines on the other. ISIMM organizes regular meetings and launches publications both as proceedings and as separate textbooks or monographs. Membership is subject to a recommendation by three members of ISIMM.
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History and concept in brief

ISIMM was founded in 1977 in Kozubnik in Southern Poland. Historically, there had been a planning period before that time which had culminated in a meeting in Lecce, Apulia, Italy two years earlier. That meeting was organized by Gaetano Fichera along with some of his colleagues from Rome and with Polish colleagues. At that time the Cold War was still on for scientists from different sides of the Iron Curtain it was not altogether easy to meet; Russian scientists, in particular, found it difficult to obtain a passport for going to a western country; but less so, if they were invited by a scientific society. Hence the idea of ISIMM came naturally, a society with an impressive constitution and with the backing of a truly international group of scientists from all over the world, even though the European element was predominant.
In its early years, the Society represented a European counterpart of The Society for Natural Philosophy founded in 1963 by Clifford Truesdell. ISIMM is presently a member of IUTAM . According to its constitution, the Society seeks also cooperation with other existing international organizations such as IMU, the SIAM, or the ICIAM which includes also some other learned societies as GAMM, IMA, or SMAI.
Since 2022, ISIMM is legally a non-profit organization anchored under German law as "e.V" registered at a responsible court in Wurzburg.

Representatives

Over the years the officers of the Society – president, vice president, secretary – were:
  • W. Nowacki / Th. Brooke Benjamin / H. Zorski
  • W. Fiszdon / G. Capriz / C. Dafermos
  • E. Kröner / G.I. Barenblatt / W. Wendland
  • R.J. Knops / E. Kröner / Parker
  • G. Capriz / R.J. Knops / C. Trimarco
  • I. Müller / G. Capriz / K. Wilmanski
  • M. Pitteri / I. Müller / A. Montanaro
  • L. Truskinovsky / M. Pitteri / D. Bigoni
  • A. Visintin / L. Truskinovsky / U. Stefanelli
  • G. Saccomandi / A. Visintin / G. Tomassetti
  • A. Schlömerkemper / G. Saccomandi / P. Piovano

Meetings

ISIMM organizes regularly biennial meetings. The meetings are called STAMM, Symposia on Trends in Application of Mathematics to Mechanics. A list of the Symposia follows together with the names of the organizers, or the main organizer, in brackets:
  • Lecce 1975
  • Kozubnik 1977
  • Edinburgh 1979
  • Bratislava 1981
  • Palaiseau near Paris 1983
  • Bad Honnef 1985
  • Wassenaar, near The Hague 1987
  • Hollabrunn near Vienna 1989
  • Tbilisi 1991 - eventually cancelled due to a civil war
  • Lisbon 1994
  • Warsaw 1996
  • Nizza 1998
  • Galway 2000
  • Maiori near Naples 2002
  • Seeheim-Jugenheim near Darmstadt 2004
  • Vienna 2006
  • Levico near Trento 2008
  • Schmöckwitz near Berlin 2010
  • Haifa 2012
  • Oxford 2018
  • Online event 2020

Publications

A great part of the STAMM meetings gave rise to proceedings volumes or special issues of some journals:
  • G. Fichera Trends in applications of pure mathematics to mechanics, Pitman, 1976
  • P.G. Ciarlet, M. Roseau Trends and Applications of Pure Mathematics to Mechanics, Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer, 1984
  • E. Kröner, K. Kirchgässner Trends in Applications of Pure Mathematics to Mechanics, Lecture Notes in Physics 249, Springer, 1986 978-3-540-39803-5
  • J.F. Besseling, W. Eckhaus Trends in Applications of Mathematics to Mechanics, Springer, 1988
  • W. Schneider, H. Troger, F. Ziegler Trends in applications of mathematics to mechanics, Longman Scientific & Technical, Wiley, 1991
  • J.F. Rodrigues, M.M. Marques Trends in Applications of Mathematics to Mechanics, Chapman and Hall/CRC, 1995,
  • G. Iooss, O. Gues, A. Nouri Trends in Applications of Mathematics to Mechanics. Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2000
  • P.-E. O'donoghue, J.-N. Flavin Symposium on Trends in the Application of Mathematics to Mechanics, Elsevier
  • S. Rionero, G. Romano Trends in Applications of Mathematics to Mechanics, Springer, 2005
  • Y. Wang, K. Hutter Trends in Applications of Mathematics to Mechanics, Shaker Verlag, Aachen, 2025
  • Special issue: "Symposium on trends in applications of mathematics to mechanics ", Cont. Mech. Thermodynamics, 2009, Volume 21, Issue 2 DOI: 10.1007/s00161-009-0110-8
  • E. Rocca, U. Stefanelli, L. Truskinovsky, A. Visintin Trends in Applications of Mathematics to Mechanics, Springer INdAM Series 27, 2018. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-75940-1
  • Special issue: “Mathematics & Mechanics: Natural Philosophy in the 21 Century”, Intl. J. Non-Linear Mech., 2020, Volume 123. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijnonlinmec.2020.103475
Apart from this, a book series IMM by Springer is conducted by this society.

Prizes

Since the 2010 STAMM Meeting, the award is given once in two years at the regular STAMM conferences. The recipient of the prize is expected to have made exceptional contributions towards building a link between Mathematics and Mechanics:
Apart from this, also the ISIMM Junior Prize has been established. The awardees are:
  • 2014: Elisabetta Rocca and Stefan Neukamm
  • 2016: Antonio Segatti
  • 2018: Matthias Liero
  • 2020: Vito Crismale and Michele Curatolo.
  • 2022 Manuel Friedrich
  • 2024 Marco Bresciani