Kurt Friedrichs

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Kurt Friedrichs

Kurt Otto Friedrichs (born September 28, 1901 in Kiel , † December 31, 1982 in New Rochelle , New York ) was a German-American mathematician. His main work was in the field of partial differential equations in mathematical physics .

Life

Friedrichs was the son of a lawyer and grew up in Düsseldorf. He studied in Düsseldorf, Greifswald, Freiburg im Breisgau, Graz and Göttingen. He obtained his doctorate in 1925 under Richard Courant at the University of Göttingen on the boundary value and eigenvalue problems from the theory of elastic plates . He also worked on existence sets of partial differential equations, numerical methods for partial differential equations, and hyperbolic partial differential equations, and was brought in by Courant to work on the book Mathematical Methods of Physics by Courant and Hilbert. In this context, the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy condition arose with Courant and his fellow student Hans Lewy . After his assistantship in Göttingen in 1927 he became an assistant and then a private lecturer at the RWTH Aachen (with Theodore von Kármán ), after his habilitation in 1929 he was a private lecturer in Göttingen and from 1930 professor at the TH Braunschweig . Due to the political situation after the National Socialists came to power, he also tried to find a position in the USA when he visited Courant, who had meanwhile emigrated in New York, in 1935.

Friedrichs and his Jewish friend Nellie Bruell emigrated to the USA in 1937, where they married on August 11, 1937. They had five children. Friedrichs followed Courant to New York University , where he set up a new Institute for Applied Mathematics ( Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences ). Friedrichs was initially visiting professor at New York University, from 1939 Associate Professor and then Professor at the Courant Institute. From 1974 he was Distinguished Professor of Mathematics there.

The Lax-Friedrichs method for the numerical solution of hyperbolic partial differential equations and the Friedrichs extension are associated with his name.

His doctoral students include Peter Lax (1949) and Cathleen Synge Morawetz .

He was awarded five honorary doctorates for his scientific achievements, including in 1980 from the Technical University of Braunschweig and from RWTH Aachen University, Uppsala University, New York University and Columbia University . In 1951 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and 1975 of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . Since 1959 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and since 1958 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1976 he received the National Medal of Science . In Braunschweig , from where Friedrichs and Bruell emigrated in 1937, a personality plaque commemorates the couple. From 1959 he was a corresponding member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society .

Fonts

  • Selecta. 2 volumes, Birkhäuser 1986 (editor Cathleen Synge Morawetz ).
  • Lectures on advanced ordinary differential equations. New York University. Gordon and Breach 1965, 1985.
  • Mathematical aspects of the quantum theory of fields. Interscience 1953.
  • Mathematical methods of electromagnetic theory. Courant Institute 1974.
  • Perturbation of spectra in Hilbert space. American Mathematical Society, 1967, 2008 (based on lectures at the Summer Seminar in Applied Mathematics in Boulder 1960).
  • Special topics in fluid dynamics. Gordon and Breach 1966.
  • Spectral theory of operators in Hilbert space. Courant Institute 1961.
  • with P. Le Corbeiller, Norman Levinson , JJ Stoker : Non-linear mechanics. Providence, Rhode Island 1943.
  • with R. Courant: Supersonic flow and shock waves. Interscience 1948, 5th edition Springer Verlag 1999.
  • From Pythagoras to Einstein. Random House 1966.
  • with Richard von Mises Fluid Dynamics , Providence, Rhode Island 1942, Springer Verlag 1971.
  • Pseudodifferential Operators- an introduction , Courant Institute 1968.
  • R. Courant, K. Friedrichs, Hans Lewy : About the partial difference equations of mathematical physics. In: Mathematische Annalen, Volume 100, 1928, pp. 32-74. On-line

literature

  • Cathleen Synge-Morawetz: Obituary in the Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences.
  • Excerpt from the autobiography of Nellie Friedrichs from: Andreas Lixl-Purcell (ed.): Memories of German-Jewish Women 1900–1990. Reclam, Leipzig 1992, ISBN 3-379-01423-0 .
  • Michael Wetter, Daniel Weßelhöft: Victims of National Socialist Persecution at the Technical University of Braunschweig 1930 to 1945. Hildesheim 2010. pp. 119–121.
  • Gerd Biegel, Angela Klein, Peter Albrecht, Thomas Sonar (eds.): Jewish life and academic milieu in Braunschweig: Nellie and Kurt Otto Friedrichs. Lang, Frankfurt a. M. 2012

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the city of Braunschweig. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 86.
  3. ^ Kurt Otto Friedrich's obituary at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (PDF file).
  4. ↑ Kurt Otto Friedrichs. In: braunschweig.de. City of Braunschweig, accessed on December 7, 2011 (A personality board of the BLIK - Braunschweiger guidance and information system for culture in front of a house An der Paulikirche commemorates the couple Kurt Otto Friedrichs and Nellie Friedrichs , née Bruell.).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Friedrichs, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Friedrichs, Kurt Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1982
Place of death New Rochelle , New York