Heinz Unger (mathematician)

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Heinz Unger (born June 10, 1914 in Nordhausen ; † November 6, 2007 ) was a German mathematician and engineering scientist .

Life

Heinz Unger was born in Nordhausen in 1914 as the son of the engineer Max Unger. He went to school in Augsburg, Munich and Hildburghausen . In Hildburghausen he received his school leaving certificate in 1934. From 1937 to 1941 Unger studied mechanical engineering at the TH Darmstadt . In July 1941 he passed the main diploma examination with distinction. As an employee of Viktor Blaess , he was involved in research into rocket technology in the Peenemünde project in the early 1940s. In 1942 or 1943 he moved to Alwin Walther and worked in an alternative position at the Institute for Practical Mathematics (IPM) in Beerfelden until the end of the Second World Warin the Odenwald. Investigations into projects in Peenemünde were carried out there on behalf of the Reich Research Council.

Unger joined the National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) in 1941.

Unger became a Dr.-Ing. In April 1944 at the Institute for Practical Mathematics at the TH Darmstadt. PhD . His doctoral supervisor was Alwin Walther (1898–1967), a pioneer of computer technology . The topic of his dissertation was "Numerical treatment of initial value problems in ordinary linear differential equations of the 2nd order" .

From January 1946 to 1955 he was a research assistant and later a lecturer at the TH Darmstadt. In 1947 he also completed his habilitation at the TH Darmstadt. His habilitation thesis was entitled "For the calculation of cylinder functions with Lommel polynomials and derivative polynomials" .

In 1955, Heinz Unger became director of the Institute for Practical Mathematics and Descriptive Geometry at the TH Hannover . He procured the first computer for the TH Hannover, an IBM 650.

From 1958 until his retirement in 1979, Unger held the chair for applied mathematics at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In 1968 he and Ernst Peschl founded the Society for Mathematics and Data Processing (GMD) from the Bonn Institute for Instrumental Mathematics . This large-scale research facility, supported by the federal government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, was integrated into the Fraunhofer Society in 2001 (see also Birlinghoven Castle ). In the founding phase of the GMD, Unger was its first scientific managing director and until his retirement in 1979 as head of the institute.

Several of his 19 doctoral students later became professors: Fritz Krückeberg (Bonn), Karl Heinz Böhling (Bonn), Eberhard Schock (Kaiserslautern), Jörg Blatter (Rio de Janeiro), Christian Fenske (Giessen), Jochen Reinermann (Aachen), Diethard Pallaschke (Karlsruhe), Kurt Georg (Fort Collins) and Dimitrios Kravvaritis (Athens).

Heinz Unger died at the age of 93. He was born in 1944 with Johanna Gisela. Walter married. The couple had two children.

Act

As a pioneer of scientific computing and the use of computers, Unger combined mathematical and IT methods to deal with fundamental scientific questions as well as to solve practical engineering application problems .

Works

  • Numerical treatment of initial value problems in ordinary linear differential equations , dissertation, Darmstadt 1944.
  • For solving extensive linear systems of equations . Journal of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Volume 32, Issue 1, January 1952

literature

  • Melanie Hanel: The Technical University of Darmstadt in the “Third Reich”, dissertation, Darmstadt 2013.

Individual evidence

  1. a b Heinz Unger in the Mathematics Genealogy Project (English)Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / id used Template: MathGenealogyProject / Maintenance / name used