Vladimir Arnold died on 3rd of June 2010 in Paris, just 9 days before his 73rd birthday.

I am sure many mechanicians know him by his books, such as

• "Catastrophe Theory",
• "Topological Methods in Hydrodynamics",
• "Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics" (classics)
• "Ordinary Differential Equations"(classics)
• "Arnold's Problems" (A brain-twister)
• and many others (librarything.org, amazon.com).

Arnold's web page

Arnold's bioghraphy at Wikipedia in

• english
• german
• french
• russian

Interviews with Arnold in English:

• interview on Springer,
• interview on AMS,
• Arnold in the eyes of his students

Arnold's lecture on "Teaching mathematics".

R.I.P.