Eighty Years of the Finite Element Method (2022)
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Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderI've been a full-time FEM Analyst for 15 years now. It's generally a nice article, though in my opinion paints a far rosier picture of the last couple decades than is warranted. Actual, practical use of FEM has been stagnate for quite some time. There have been some nice stability improvements to the numerical algorithms that make highly nonlinear problems a little easier; solvers are more optimized; and hardware is of course dramatically more capable (flash storage has been a…
My first programming role was on the back of work by an engineer in this article. The core of the solver was a FORTRAN implementation of a paper on p-convergence. It was really amazing seeing our software predict how a small crack in a part of an aircraft would propagate. The 3D model produced matched the photograph shared later. The lead developer (at the time) once said that the biggest software failure we can have is not incorrect results, but…
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 386
- Total comments
- 147
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-06-27 | Eighty Years of the Finite Element Method: Birth, Evolution, and Future | leephillips | 4 | 0 |
| 2022-11-05 | Eighty Years of the Finite Element MethodFirst breakout | leephillips | 179 | 45 |
| 2024-11-02 | Eighty Years of the Finite Element Method (2022)Best thread · Latest 20+ point return | sandwichsphinx | 203 | 102 |