Theodore von Kármán

Theodore von Kármán (May 11, 1881 as Kármán Tódor in Budapest, † May 7, 1963 in Aachen ) was a Hungarian ( Austro- Hungarian ) / American physicist and aerospace engineer. He is considered a pioneer of modern aerodynamics and aviation and missile research.

Life

From Kármán was the third of five children and was born into a distinguished Jewish family in Budapest. He studied from 1898 to 1902 engineering science at the Technical University of Budapest. In 1903, he worked as a teaching assistant and at the same time at Ganz & Cie. A scholarship enabled him in 1906 a change at the University of Göttingen to Ludwig Prandtl and Felix Klein, where he. Received his doctorate in 1908 with a thesis on the theory of elasticity ( resistance to buckling of rods ) In 1910 he completed his habilitation in Göttingen.

1911 and 1912 published by Kármán his best-known work on the later named after him Karman vortex streets. In Göttingen, he also worked with Max Born on specific heat in quantum theory of crystal lattices.

With some of his early works, he is also counted among the pioneers of the theory of plasticity. 1910 and 1913 he wrote the article on strength of materials in the Encyclopedia of mathematical sciences (some with Foppl August ) and 1910, he invented the triaxial. Also in the 1920s he published nor work on plasticity theory.

In 1913 he followed a call to the " Royal Rhenish - Westphalian Polytechnic School" Aachen (now RWTH Aachen ), where he henceforth the Institute of Mechanics and aeronautical aerodynamics ( now Institute of Mechanics ) initiated. During this time he lived in the neighboring Netherlands Vaals. In 1919, he was a close associate of Béla Fogarasi in the Department of Higher Education of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.

From 1926, he began his research in the United States to relocate. There he worked at the California Institute of Technology, where in 1929 the management of the Aeronautical Laboratory took over and kept it until 1949. At first he commuted between the U.S. and Germany back and forth. 1933, von Karman in Aachen a request for leave of absence, which was granted to him, if he thereafter remained at least a full academic year in Aachen.

In the spring of 1933 began also at RWTH Aachen Denunziationsmaßnahmen the student body. Here were the ASTA (General Student Committee ) and the student leaders the Denunziationsausschuss this extra- employed, consisting of Hermann Bonin, Hubert Hoffmann, Felix Rötscher, Adolf Wallichs, and Robert Hans Wentzel, send messages about what were the lecturers and professors of non-Aryan descent or supposedly or actually had an undesirable political setting. Kármán should therefore, according to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service due to his Jewish heritage together with the other non-Aryan professors Otto Blumenthal, Arthur Guttmann, Walter Maximilian Fuchs, Ludwig Hopf, Paul Ernst Levy, Karl Walter Mautner, Alfred Meusel, Leopold Karl Pick, Rudolf Ruer, Hermann Ludwig Strauss Salmang and the teaching license be revoked. In 1934 he was officially dismissed from the civil service. Despite the dismissal of the German Air Ministry wanted to engage the experts in aerodynamics as a consultant, but what von Karman refused.

At the same time, he built up in Pasadena, California, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was consultant to the U.S. Air Force and founded the Aerospace Medicine Panel of the Advisory Group of Aerospace Research and Development ( AGARD ), an aviation research organization of NATO. In 1942 he founded the Aerojet General Corporation. She became a leading manufacturer of missile technology.

Karman worked as his teacher Ludwig Prandtl in many fields of fluid mechanics and is considered one of the fathers of aerodynamics.

He died in 1963 during a treatment in Aachen.

Honors

The RWTH Aachen has a Auditorienkomplex named " Kármán Auditorium ", a student residence of the Aachen Student bears his name, the student newspaper has chosen its name to hers. There are also in Aachen a " Kármánstraße " at RWTH. Was also named after him called the Kármán line, the imaginary edge of space.

In 1928 he gave a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Bologna ( Mathematical problems of modern aerodynamics ).

Theodore von Kármán was an honorary member or a member of 41 national scientific societies twelve different countries and 28 (29? ) Times the honorary doctorate he was awarded, including three German universities.

In addition, he received more than thirty different awards and honors. He received the Medal for Merit in 1946, at that time the highest civilian award of the USA. In 1961 he was awarded the James Watt Medal. He was awarded as the first scientist for his achievements in science, technology and education in 1963 by U.S. President John F. Kennedy of the Order of National Medal of Science.

In 1956 he was a member of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences ( ICAS ) in 1960 in the International Academy of Astronautics.

In 1991, the U.S. Post Office was in honor of his 110th birthday is issuing a special stamp. In his honor, named the Von Karman Medal and the Theodore von Kármán Prize.

After TvKármán a crater on the Moon and a Mars craters are named.