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Biography of Theodore von KármánName: Theodore von KármánBirth Date: May 11, 1881 Death Date: 1963 Place of Birth: Budapest, Hungary Nationality: Hungarian, American Gender: Male Occupations: physicist Theodore von Kármán The Hungarian-born American physicist Theodore von Kármán (1881-1963) made significant contributions to the fields of hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, and thermodynamics.Theodore von Kármán was born on May 11, 1881, in Budapest. His father, a professor of education, founded the Minta Model Gymnasium, where Theodore was enrolled at the age of nine. There he learned the inductive reasoning approach which he practiced all his life. In 1898 he entered the Royal Joseph University of Polytechnics and Economics in Budapest, the only engineering school in Hungary, graduating with distinction in 1902. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army for a year and then returned to the Royal Joseph as assistant professor.Professional AccomplishmentsVon Kármán's first major contribution to the study of engineering materials was the extension of the Euler theory of elastic-column buckling to an explanation of inelastic buckling (published 1906). That same year von Kárm&…showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…used to bring about international peace; at the same time he maintained that the scientists as a group should act as adviser rather than advocate. It was his belief that "a scientist should be neither a [Edward] Teller nor an [Albert] Einstein insofar as public affairs are concerned." Near the end of his life he foresaw the creation of an international government and expressed great optimism in the role of science and technology in the future. Further Reading A useful autobiography, written with the help of Lee Edson and published after von Kármán's death in 1963, is The Wind and Beyond: Theodore von Kármán, Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder in Space (1967), which also contains a list of his more than 100 books and papers.Gorn, Michael H., The universal man: Theodore von Kármán's life in aeronautics, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. |