Steven Orszag

Steven Alan Orszag ( born February 27, 1943 in New York City; † 1 May 2011 New Haven, Connecticut) was an American physicist, engineer and applied mathematician.

Life

Orszag was the son of a lawyer and grew up in Forest Hills in Queens on. He studied at 16 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT ), where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1962 in mathematics, and 1962/63 at Cambridge University (St. John's College ). In 1966 he received his doctorate from Princeton University with Martin Kruskal of the theory of turbulence. From 1967 he was Professor of Applied Mathematics at MIT. From 1984 he was Professor of Engineering at Princeton University. From 1998 he was professor of mathematics at Yale University. It was 1966/67, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study.

1970 to 1974 he was a Sloan Fellow and 1989/90 Guggenheim Fellow. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Orszag received the Otto Laporte Award, the award for hydrodynamics and plasma physics ( fluid and plasma Dynamics Award), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the GI Taylor Medal of the Society of Engineering Science.

Orszag employs techniques of applied mathematics and numerical analysis, hydrodynamics and turbulence (treatment with renormalization group methods, Large Eddy Simulation), in the context of computer-assisted treatment, he was also involved in the establishment of a number of companies ( IBRIX, Flow Research, Vector Technologies, Exa Corporation). With Carl M. Bender, he wrote a textbook on mathematical methods for engineers and scientists. In addition, he also dealt with chip fabrication and computer data storage.

In the numerical analysis, he is a pioneer of spectral methods for partial differential equations known ( a term he introduced ). He wrote a book about it with David Gottlieb.

He was married to Reba Karp since 1964 and had three sons. His son Peter is a banker at Citibank and former budget director in the cabinet of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Writings

• With Carl Bender: Advanced Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers, Volume 1 ( Asymptotic methods and perturbation theory ), Springer 1999 ( the precursor edition in one volume was published in 1978 by McGraw Hill )
• With David Gottlieb: Numerical analysis of spectral methods: theory and applications, SIAM 1977