Hans Liepmann (physicist)
Hans Wolfgang Liepmann (born July 3, 1914 in Berlin ; † June 24, 2009 in La Cañada Flintridge , California ) was a German-American physicist and engineer who dealt with hydrodynamics and aerodynamics .
Life
Liepmann grew up in Berlin as the son of a doctor (and director of a hospital) and there he also graduated from high school. In 1934 he went with his family on the run from the National Socialists to Istanbul , where his father headed the gynecology department at the university. He attended the University of Istanbul and received his doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1938 (in low-temperature physics with Richard Bar). There he also heard physics lectures from Gregor Wentzel . From 1939 he was an aeronautics fellow at Caltech with Theodore von Kármán . In 1945 he became Assistant Professor there, in 1946 Associate Professor and in 1949 Professor of Aeronautics. In 1976 he was Charles Lee Powell Professor of Hydrodynamics and Thermodynamics and from 1984 of Karman Professor . Since 1985 he has been Professor Emeritus. From 1972 to 1985 he was director of the Graduate Aeronautics Laboratories (GALCIT).
In 1993 he received the National Medal of Technology for outstanding contributions to research in hydrodynamics and in 1986 the National Medal of Science . In 1980 he received the hydrodynamics price of the American Physical Society and in 1985 their Otto Laporte Award. He was an honorary doctor of the University of Aachen and received the German Ludwig Prandtl Ring . He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences . In 1960 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
He dealt with many areas of hydrodynamics such as flow instabilities, turbulence, flow of liquid helium, gas kinetics, viscous incompressible liquids, interaction of shock waves with boundary layer currents, turbulent shear flow, heating of aircraft at supersonic, chemistry of turbulent mixtures, magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics . At Caltech he supervised over 60 doctoral students. During the Second World War he worked on high-speed aerodynamics for flights near the sound limit ( transonic range).
At Caltech he was jointly responsible for the establishment of a course in applied mathematics (1967) and (with Amnon Yariv and Roy W. Gould ) for applied physics (1974).
Fonts
- with Allen E. Puckett: Introduction to the Aerodynamics of a Compressible Fluid , Wiley 1947
- with Anatol Roshko : Elements of Gas Dynamics , Wiley 1957, Dover 2002
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Liepmann, Hans |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Liepmann, Hans Wolfgang (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-American physicist and engineer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 3, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 24, 2009 |
| Place of death | La Cañada Flintridge , California |