Peter Wegener

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Peter Paul Wegener (born August 29, 1917 in Berlin , † September 13, 2008 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was a German-American physicist, known for the development of supersonic wind tunnels . He was a professor at Yale University .

Life

Wegener was the son of actor Paul Wegener and actress Lyda Salmonova . His studies of physics and geophysics at the University of Berlin were interrupted when he was called up in 1939. In 1943 he received his diploma and doctorate during a break in his military service (on the Russian front). In the further course of the war he was involved in the V2 project in Peenemünde as part of a team that built the first supersonic wind tunnel.

After the war, like other German rocket researchers, he came to the USA as part of Operation Paperclip and also worked on wind tunnels at the Naval Ordinance Laboratory in Maryland . He also taught at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland and was a consultant at Ohio State University . From 1953 he was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena , where he became section head for aerodynamics research.

In 1960 he became a professor at Yale University . In 1964 he became head of the applied science department, was head of the engineering and applied science department from 1966 to 1971 and became Harold Hodgkinson professor in 1972 . Gas lasers were developed in his department, and he himself later turned to developing science curricula for non-scientists, both in university and high schools. In 1987 he retired.

In 1951 he received the Meritorious Civilian Service Award from the US Navy and in 1982 the Otto Laporte Prize . He received the Humboldt Research Award for US Senior Scientists, was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.

He was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin , visiting scholar at the Jiaotong University in Xian in China, at the University of Karlsruhe (of which he was an honorary doctor) and at the University of Oxford . Wegener was a consultant at NASA and the Rand Corporation.

Gravestone of Peter Wegener in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

He had been married to actress Annette Schleiermacher since 1963 . Three sons were born from two previous marriages.

Peter Wegener died in New Haven, Connecticut in September 2008 at the age of 91. He was buried in the state's own cemetery in Heerstraße in Berlin-Westend in the grave of honor of his father Paul Wegener (burial location: 4-B embankment).

Fonts

  • The wind tunnels of Peenemünde: a memoir , Yale University Press 1996
    • German translation: The rocket research in Peenemünde , Oldenburg, Schardt 2011
  • What makes airplanes fly?: History, science, and applications of aerodynamics , Springer Verlag, 2nd edition 1997 (first 1987)

Web link

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Paul Wegener . Life data on the website of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin . Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  2. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 496.
personal data
SURNAME Wegener, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wegener, Peter P.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American engineering scientist
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 2008
Place of death New Haven (Connecticut)