Philip Saffman

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Philip Geoffrey Saffman (born March 19, 1931 in Leeds , † August 17, 2008 in Los Angeles ) was a British applied mathematician who was an expert in hydrodynamics .

Saffman was the son of a lawyer and studied at Cambridge University with a bachelor's degree (1953) and a doctorate in applied mathematics (1956) with GK Batchelor . He was then a Research Fellow at Trinity College in Cambridge and from 1958 a lecturer . 1960 to 1964 he was a reader at King's College London . From 1964 he was professor of hydrodynamics at Caltech , from 1995 as Theodore von Karman professor. In 2001 he retired.

He dealt with the dynamics of eddies (vortices), flow of viscous liquids, turbulence, interaction of liquid waves. Saffman-Taylor instabilities are named after him and Geoffrey Ingram Taylor at the boundary between two liquids of different viscosity (with typical finger formation). The effect has applications in oil production. With Max Delbrück he published a theory of the diffusion of proteins in membranes.

Due to his expertise in vortices in liquids and gases, he was called in to assess various aircraft accidents, for example on Delta Air Lines flight 191 (1985) in Dallas. He calculated how long it takes for the wake vortices to dissipate during take-off and landing of passenger aircraft, applying it to safe distances for take-off and landing.

In 1970/71 he was visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .

In 1994 he received the Otto Laporte Prize . He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1978) and the Royal Society (1988).

He had been married to Ruth Arion since 1954 and had three children.

Fonts

  • Vortex Dynamics , Cambridge University Press 1995

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ His two brothers joined their father's law firm in Leeds
  3. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
personal data
SURNAME Saffman, Philip
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saffman, Philip Geoffrey (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British applied mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH March 19, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Leeds
DATE OF DEATH August 17, 2008
Place of death los Angeles