Adrian Bowyer is an English engineer and mathematician, formerly an academic at the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

Life and works

Born in 1952 in London, Bowyer is the older child of the late Rosemary and John Bowyer; the latter was a writer, painter and one of the founders of Zisman, Bowyer and Partners, consulting engineers. Bowyer was educated at Woodroffe School,

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis ( ) is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and ...

and

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. In 1977 he joined the

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

Department at the

. Shortly after that he received a doctorate from

for research in friction-induced vibration. Whilst working in the Mathematics Department he invented (at the same time as David Watson) the algorithm for computing

Voronoi diagram In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram is a partition of a plane into regions close to each of a given set of objects. It can be classified also as a tessellation. In the simplest case, these objects are just finitely many points in the plane (calle ...

s that bears their names (the Bowyer–Watson algorithm). He then spent twenty-two years as a lecturer then senior lecturer in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Bath. He retired from academic life in 2012, though he is still a director of the company RepRap Ltd. He invented the RepRap Project – an open-source 3D printer that can produce plastic parts, including all such parts for a copy of itself.

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

said of this, " epRaphas been called the invention that will bring down global capitalism, start a second industrial revolution and save the environment..." In 2017 Bowyer received the 3D Printing Industry Outstanding Contribution to 3D Printing Award and was inducted into the TCT Hall of Fame. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to 3D Printing. His wife is a retired school teacher; they have one adult daughter.

References

External links

Adrian Bowyer's home page

RepRapLtd.com

Wealth Without Money
, Adrian Bowyer at Medialab-Prado
In the future everyone will work for 15 minutes
Adrian Bowyer presentation {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowyer, Adrian 1952 births Living people Engineers from London Academics of the University of Bath Articles containing video clips RepRap project Alumni of Imperial College London Date of birth missing (living people) 3D printing specialists Mathematicians from London Members of the Order of the British Empire