Hans Reissner
Hans Jacob Reissner ( born January 18, 1874 in Berlin, † October 2, 1967 in Colton (Oregon ), USA ) was a German engineer, mathematician and physicist.
Reissner gained after his education in Berlin in 1897, the title of a civil engineer, after graduating from the local Technical College (now the Technical University of Berlin) with success. He then went for a year to the U.S. to work as a draftsman. After his return, he studied at the Max Planck, at the Berlin University Physics. In 1900 he went back to the technical college to habilitation in 1902 with Heinrich Müller -Breslau in engineering with a thesis on vibrations in trusses. He was an employee of the university, worked but also for Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, conducting calculations for the structures of airships through.
In 1904 he was awarded a scholarship to study in the U.S., the use of the material in the steel construction, whence he came back to Germany in 1906 to accept a professorship of mechanics at the Technische Hochschule in Aachen. He turned the then new discipline of aviation and led to fundamental research to a stability and control as well as drive issues and established the Aerodynamic Institute. His work he summarized Scientific questions of aviation technology in the pioneering essay. During this time he came into contact with Arnold Sommerfeld. On June 6, 1906 he married Josephine Reichenberger. The couple had four children, Max Erich (Eric Reissner ), Edgar William, Gertrude Dorothea ( Thea ) and Eve Sabine.
His first aircraft, a large steel pipe biplane, led in April 1909 to the Brander Heath at Aachen several flights of over 100 m in length at a height of four to six meters out. From the fall he built a monoplane in duck form, ie at back of wing and forward, on a boom, sitting tail, the Reissner duck which flew in 1912. Pilot was the Swiss Robert Gsell. Reissner used as feature instead of the usual fabric cover that came from his colleague Hugo Junkers light metal corrugated iron as a bearing surface. It can thus be regarded as the first all-metal aircraft, the aircraft.
Rice dryer efforts in Aachen to the development of aviation and aircraft models, the scientific and technical research in the field of aircraft construction at the Technical University, the public interest as well as the necessary coordination of a planned long-haul flight to Berlin culminated on March 12, 1911 establishing the Aachen Association for air shipping. Four scientific associations, of the Aachen district association in the Association of German Engineers, the Society of Earth and meteorology, which, scientific association of Aachen and the Electrotechnical Association and 76 individuals, including next Reissner Professors Junkers, Hertwig, Frentzen, Wallichs, Polis, Rötscher the aviation pioneer Erich Lochner, the incumbent mayor Veltmann, government representatives, city councilors, officers and even eight wives, including the ladies Lochner, Polis, Rötscher, Reissner and Delius, were among the signatories of the Memorandum. More than 170 members have joined the association and Reissner was elected to the first Board of Directors.
In 1913 he followed a call to his old Technical University in Berlin, where he became Professor of Mathematics. The design of his villa in Berlin- Charlottenburg came from the architect Fritz Crzellitzer. During the First World War Reissner structure calculations led to the Zeppelin - Staaken by giant aircraft and began the development of propellers. For his work he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class for non- soldiers. At the same time he worked on the theory of relativity. He wrote the essay in 1916 about the self-gravity of the electric field according to Einstein's theory, where he gave a solution of Einstein's field equations, corresponding to an electrically charged black hole. A similar work was presented in 1918 by Gunnar Nordström. This so-called Reissner - Nordström metric could be deduced from the Maxwell equation and was used as a basis for Quantengeometrodynamik. Because of his work was Reissner also in contact with Erwin Schrödinger.
In 1929, he met with Moritz Straus, the owner of both the Argus works as well as listening. As Reissner was to compulsory retirement under the Nazi regime in 1935 because of his Jewish origin, he entered into a consultancy agreement with the Argus Motoren Gesellschaft and constructed Verstellluftschrauben, in their development, he had worked since the beginning of the 30s. As Straus 1938 " linearization " was forced in the course of, leave the Argus -Werke Reissner emigrated to the United States. There he planted himself in a second career, and taught from 1938 to 1944 at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He then moved to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, where he worked until his retirement in 1954.
In Aachen, Reissner also dealt with the theory of earth pressure.
His son Eric Reissner was mechanics professor at MIT.