1949: Werner Goldsmith (1924-2003) earns his Mechanical Engineering PhD from UC Berkeley and joins the faculty, quickly becoming a pioneer in the mechanics of collision
by David Pescovitz
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 Werner Goldsmith with the models he used over the years to study adult head injuries.
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From his expert
testimonies during trials related to the beating of Rodney King
to his campaign urging physicians and prosecutors to bring a more
scientific eye to purported cases of "shaken baby syndrome," Werner
Goldsmith, UC Berkeley mechanical engineering professor emeritus,
was recognized as an international authority on the mechanics of
collision. He died August 23 after a brief illness. He was 79.
Goldsmith literally wrote the book on impact. His 1960 monograph,
Impact: The Theory and Physical Behaviour of Colliding Solids,
was the first textbook to systematize the mechanics of collision.
Still the essential text in the field, Impact analyzes the mechanics
of colliding solids in everything from car crashes to refinery
explosions.
A registered mechanical and safety engineer for the state of California,
Goldsmith was sought after as a consultant for nearly 50 years
in the areas of impact, vehicle collisions, head and neck injuries,
and the effectiveness of protective devices such as sports and
armed forces helmets.
"He testified sometimes for the defense, sometimes for the prosecution,
whatever side he thought was correct," said George Leitmann,
a Professor in the Graduate School at UC Berkeley and Goldsmith's
second Ph.D. student. "He was a person of very strong convictions
that were very firmly held and very firmly expressed."
In 2001, Goldsmith sought to bring public attention to "shaken-baby
syndrome," a common allegation in cases of infant abuse. He
launched new research on the biomechanics of infant head and neck
trauma to help pediatricians and prosecutors differentiate between
abuse and accident.
Born in Dusseldorf, Germany, Goldsmith was the only member of his
family to escape the Holocaust. He emigrated to the United States
in his early teens, graduating from the University of Texas with
undergraduate and master's degrees in mechanical engineering.
He became a US citizen in 1945 before working for two years as
an engineer at Westinghouse Electric Corporation and an instructor
at the universities of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania. In 1947, Goldsmith
came to UC Berkeley where he earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering
in just two years, simultaneously holding an appointment as instructor.
By 1960, he was a full professor.
In 1995, Goldsmith received UC Berkeley's prestigious Berkeley
Citation and, in 2001, he was honored by the UC Berkeley College
of Engineering with its Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award.
Even as he made history, he devoted a great deal of time chronicling
the success of his colleagues. Goldsmith's history book of
the department, Mechanical Engineering at Berkeley: The First
125 Years, was published in 1997.
"Werner was a great man, with friends all over the world," says
Professor Emeritus Jerome Sackman of UC Berkeley's Department
of Civil & Environmental Engineering, a friend and longtime
colleague. "Post docs and graduate students came from Asia,
from Europe, from all over to work with him, and many of his students
are now holding leading positions in government, industry and first-class
universities all over the world."
Goldsmith was working on his next scientific paper until the last
week of his life. "Brain injury in infants and children," co-written
with John Plunkett, M.D., is scheduled for publication this year
in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology.
Werner Goldsmith is survived by his wife, Penelope Goldsmith of
Oakland; daughters, Andrea Goldsmith of Menlo Park and Remy Margarethe
Goldsmith of Oakland; son, Stephen of Santa Rosa; and four grandchildren.
Donations in his memory may be made to the Berkeley Engineering
Annual Fund, College of Engineering, University of California,
Berkeley, 208 McLaughlin Hall (1722), Berkeley, CA 94720-1722;
or Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project, P.O. Box 1597, Burlingame,
CA 94011-1597
"Professor
emeritus and mechanics of collision expert Werner Goldsmith dies
at 79" by Patty Meagher
"Revisiting
shaken-baby syndrome" by Bonnie Azab Powell
Mechanical
Engineering: The First 125 Years by Werner Goldsmith
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