In a dark room on the third floor of Kimball Hall, researchers analyze dragonflies and butterflies with a high-speed camera to better understand the aerodynamics and mechanics of flight.

A nearby laboratory, dedicated to the study of booming sand — a natural sound phenomenon produced by dunes under stress — reverberates as microphones and speakers play to a thin crate full of sand.

These are some of the laboratories that used to comprise the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (TAM). On Jan. 1, 2009, however, the College of Engineering merged TAM with the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE).

Before Jan. 1, TAM had 14 faculty members and a graduate class of about 30 students. According to critics of the merger, TAM made unique contributions to science and engineering at Cornell despite its relatively small department size. “I personally cannot see how we can fit all those disciplines in MAE without being too ‘mathy’ or being theorists,” Acmae Yacoubi grad said.

Cornell established TAM in 1964, when the growing field of engineering required a program in fundamental and applied mathematics. Research in TAM provides the theoretical foundation for a wide range of topics including biorobotics, fluid mechanics and computational mechanics. In each of the laboratories on the third floor of Kimball, both graduate and undergraduate students continue to conduct elaborate and stimulating studies.

The ceiling of Prof. Andy Ruina’s laboratory holds dozens of colorful bikes used in his studies of bicycles, friction and fracture. Under the bikes and propped on the side of the lab is a robot named Ranger, complete with eyes and a foam brain. Thanks to Ruina’s research in legged locomotion and the help of a few batteries, Ranger holds the world record for the longest distance walked by a robot — about 40 times around Barton Hall, or roughly five miles, on a single set of batteries.

Down the hall, Prof. Alan Zehnder places honeycombed-shaped sheets of aluminum in between two slabs of layered and compressed carbon, forming composite matrices. One of Zehnder’s research projects analyzes the damage tolerance of these matrices, studying how their function changes under impacts ranging from a poke to a crushing blow.

Prof. Steven Strogatz and TAM alumnus Duncan Watts recently appeared on an Australian ABC TV network documentary for their work on social networks. Their “six degrees of separation” concept implies that each person on earth can be connected to anybody else through only six people.

TAM maintained such an extensive and dynamic research atmosphere on a research budget of about two million dollars, relatively little compared to the ten million received by larger departments. “We [TAM faculty] will have, even with the merge with MAE — if you go with ranking — positions 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10, I think. We are highly recognized by our academic peers,” Professor Joe Burns asserted. Three-quarters of the faculty formerly in TAM held teaching awards in mechanics and applied math.

Outside of the engineering college, TAM collaborated with the math department for over 30 years to mentor students in MATH 293 and 294, two core courses required for all engineers. The department invested in and allocated space for two laboratories dedicated for two engineering distribution courses, ENGRD 202: Mechanics of Solids and ENGRD 203: Dynamics.

“Whatever question you have — fluid, dynamics, solid mechanics, math, etc, you will find a professor in TAM to address it. They always have time if you have a question and need ‘to argue’ about it and spend crazy hours discussing it,” Yacoubi said.

TAM was an open hub for nontraditional subjects that did not quite fit in physics or engineering. Nonetheless, it was an extremely attractive field — a search for a new associate professor in 2008 brought in 358 applications.

Cornell has followed in the footsteps of other colleges where Theoretical and Applied Mechanics departments were merged into the Mechanical Engineering department.

However, faculty members from both departments have said the high caliber work that typifies both TAM and MAE will continue. “There is good intellectual overlap,” MAE director Lance Collins said, “so we can build off of that. We complement each other very well. Their mechanics is very outstanding; our fluid mechanics is very outstanding. We can be strong in all major areas of mechanical engineering.”

In fact, Burns viewed the merge as an opportunity: “If someone sticks you off on an island, maybe you’ll learn to surf.” These engineers know waves — they will learn how to surf.