Erich Trefftz

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Erich Trefftz

Erich Immanuel Trefftz (born February 21, 1888 in Leipzig , † January 21, 1937 in Dresden ) was a German mechanic , mathematician and university professor .

Life

Trefftz building of the TU Dresden

Erich Trefftz was the son of the businessman Oskar Trefftz and Anna Eliza, nee. Stanchion. From 1897 he attended the St. Thomas School in Leipzig . The family moved to Aachen in 1900 , where Trefftz graduated from the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in 1906 . Then he began to study mechanical engineering at the Technical University . However, after two semesters he switched to studying mathematics, which he carried out in Göttingen from 1908 , where he studied under David Hilbert , Paul Koebe and Ludwig Prandtl . With the help of his uncle Carl Runge , he completed a study visit to Columbia University in New York in 1909/10 and then continued his studies at the University of Strasbourg , where he met Richard von Mises . From 1912 he worked at the TH Aachen as an assistant and received his doctorate in 1913 with the thesis on the contraction of circular fluid jets . In the First World War was Trefftz 1914 volunteer and officer, was recalled to it after being wounded in May 1917 the Aerodynamic Institute in Aachen. During this time he also wrote his habilitation thesis and was appointed professor of mathematics at the TH Aachen in 1919. He had married Frieda Offermann a year earlier. The marriage had five children born between 1919 and 1926, including Eleonore Trefftz , Dr. of the natural sciences, and the radiologist Friederike Trefftz .

Grave of Erich Trefftz in the Loschwitz cemetery

In 1922 Erich Trefftz was appointed to the mechanical department of the TH Dresden and, as a full professor for technical mechanics, headed the chair of the mathematical and natural science department of the same name from 1927, where he was particularly interested in aviation and in the field of hydrodynamics, elasticity theory and Vibration theory. In 1926 Trefftz published a method for the "numerical, approximate solution of linear homogeneous boundary value problems for partial differential equations", which is now known as "Trefftz's method". In 1929, the TH Stuttgart awarded him an honorary doctorate. From 1933 Erich Trefftz was editor of the magazine for applied mathematics and mechanics of the GAMM , which was continued after his death by Friedrich Adolf Willers . In November 1933 he signed the German professors' confession of Adolf Hitler . In 1934 he received the Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize . Trefftz campaigned for numerous Jewish colleagues during National Socialism, but also for those politically persecuted such as Friedrich Adolf Willers. From 1936 Trefftz worked three days a week at the German Aviation Research Institute in Berlin-Adlershof ; at about the same time he became co-editor of the Gelben Springer collection.

Erich Trefftz died in Dresden in 1937 after a serious illness. His grave is in the Loschwitz cemetery there . In 1987 a bust of Erich Trefftz was unveiled in the Willers Building of the TU Dresden, and since 1994 the lecture hall of the mathematical and physical institutes of the TU Dresden has been called the Trefftz Building . Part of his estate is now managed by the TU Dresden archive.

Fonts (selection)

  • Graphic construction of Joukowian wings (1913)
  • On longitudinal stability and longitudinal vibrations of aircraft (1914)
  • On the question of stile strength (1918)
  • On the basics of vibration theory (1928)
  • To calculate the vibrations of crankshafts (1929)
  • Graphostatics (1936)
  • Calculation of the circulation for the straight, bearing line (1938)

literature

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Web links

Commons : Erich Trefftz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Rehbock: Erich Trefftz (obituary), in: Deutsche Mathematik , Vol. 2, No. 5 (December 22, 1937), pp. 581-586.
  2. ↑ Riedrich, p. 7.
personal data
SURNAME Trefftz, Erich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Trefftz, Erich Immanuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mechanic, mathematician and physicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1937
Place of death Dresden