The Problem of Using Logic in Structural Mechanics and Electrical Engineering as Viewed by the Russian Researcher Boris Biryukov

Abstract

The authors consider innovative materials and structures developed by Boris Biryukov, a Russian researcher, within the framework of structural mechanics and civil engineering. The authors analyze the contribution made by Boris Vladimirovich Biryukov, an outstanding Russian logician, into the development of applied logic in Russia. In 1962 – 1991, Boris Biryukov headed the methodology department of the Cybernetics Research Council at the USSR Academy of Sciences. In some of his works, Biryukov interpreted the ideas initially expressed by N.M. Gersevanov, V.I. Shestakov, P. Erenfest and other logicians and mathematicians, who applied the methods, originally developed within the framework of exact and natural sciences, to technology-related problems of the national economy. The authors prove that Boris Biryukov and his colleagues were the first scholars who drew the attention of the research community to the logic-based research performed by N.M. Gersevanov, a prominent engineer and urban developer. In his works, Biryukov proved that this founder of the Russian school of soil mechanics was the first researcher who applied the instruments of mathematical logic to civil engineering problems. In the second part of the article, the authors demonstrate the way V.I. Shestakov developed several Gersevanov's ideas. Finally, the authors offer a sample relay contact circuit applied to the identically true formula compiled according to the rules of the logic of sentential calculus.