Harold Degree

Harold Grad (born January 23, 1923 in New York City , † November 17, 1986 ) was an American applied mathematician who dealt with magnetohydrodynamics ( plasma physics ) and statistical mechanics .

Grad studied (after a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Cooper Union in 1943) at New York University , where he received his master's degree in 1945 and his doctorate with Richard Courant in 1948 (Approximation in the Boltzmann Equation by Moments) He then worked at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University (from 1948 as associate professor , from 1957 until his death as professor at New York University), where he headed research in magnetohydrodynamics, the mathematical formulation of plasma physics, with applications especially in research on nuclear fusion . He headed the magnetohydrodynamics department of the Courant Institute from 1956 to 1980. In statistical mechanics he developed new methods for solving the Boltzmann equation in his dissertation . From 1964 to 1967 and 1974 to 1977 he was a member of the Advisory Committee for Fusion Energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory .

In 1986 he received the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics from the American Physical Society . Since 1970 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1970 he was invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Nice (Mathematical problems arising in plasma physics) and in 1962 in Stockholm (Mathematical problems of magneto-fluid dynamics and plasma physics).

Fonts

Magnetic properties of contained plasma , New York Academy of Sciences 1971
Principles of the kinetic theory of gases , in Siegfried Flügge (editor) Handbuch der Physik, Vol. 12, 1958

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personal data
SURNAME	Degree, Harold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	January 23, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	New York City
DATE OF DEATH	17th November 1986