Theodore von Kármán (Szőllőskislaki
Kármán Tódor) (
May 11, 1881 –
May 6, 1963) was a
Hungarian-American engineer and
physicist who was active primarily in the fields of
aeronautics and
astronautics. He is personally responsible for many key advances in
aerodynamics, notably his work on
supersonic and
hypersonic airflow characterization.
Von Kármán was born into a
Jewish family at
Budapest, Austria-Hungary as Kármán Tódor. One of his ancestors was
Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel.
He studied engineering at the city's Royal Technical University, known today as
Budapest University of Technology and Economics. After graduating in
1902 he joined
Ludwig Prandtl at the
University of Göttingen, and received his doctorate in
1908. He taught at Göttingen for four years. In
1912 accepted a position as director of the Aeronautical Institute at
RWTH Aachen, one of the country's leading universities. His time at RWTH Aachen was interrupted by service in the
Austro-Hungarian army 1915–1918, where he designed an early
helicopter. He left RWTH Aachen in
1930.; Emigration
Apprehensive about developments in Europe, in
1930 he accepted the directorship of the
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the
California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) and emigrated to the
United States. In
1936, along with
Frank Malina he founded a company
Aerojet to manufacture
JATO rocket motors. He later became a
naturalized citizen of the United States.
; German missile analysis
German activity during
World War II increased U.S. military interest in rocket research. During the early part of 1943, the Experimental Engineering Division of the U.S. Army Air Forces Materiel Command forwarded to von Kármán reports from British intelligence sources describing German rockets capable of reaching more than 100 miles. In a letter dated
2 August 1943 von Kármán provided the Army with his analysis of and comments on the German program.
; JPL
In
1944 he and others affiliated with GALCIT founded the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is now a
Federally funded research and development center managed and operated by Caltech under a contract from
NASA. In 1946 he became the first chairman of the
Scientific Advisory Group which studied aeronautical technologies for the
United States Army Air Forces. He also helped found
AGARD, the
NATO aerodynamics research oversight group (1951), the
International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (
1956), the
International Academy of Astronautics (
1960), and the
von Karman Institute in
Brussels (
1956).In June 1944, von Kármán underwent surgery for intestinal cancer in New York City. The surgery caused two
hernias, and von Kármán's recovery was slow. He return to Pasadena around mid-September. Early in September, while still in New York, he met with U.S. Army Air Forces Commanding General
Henry H. Arnold on a runway at La Guardia Airport. Hap Arnold then proposed that von Kármán move to Washington to lead the
Scientific Advisory Group and become a long-range planning consultant to the military. Von Kármán was appointed to the position on Oct. 23, 1944, and left Caltech in December 1944.
Kármán's fame was in the use of mathematical tools to study fluid flow, and the interpretation of those results to guide practical designs. He was instrumental in recognizing the importance of the
swept-back wings that are ubiquitous in modern
jet aircraft. Von Kármán, who never married, died while on a visit to Aachen, Germany, in
1963.
Craters on
Mars and the
Moon are named in his honor.
In 1977,
RWTH Aachen University named its newly constructed lecture hall complex "Kármán-Auditorium" in memory of von Kármán's outstanding research contributions at the university's Aeronautical Institute.
University of Southern California Professor
Shirley Thomas (after nearly two decades of petitioning) was able to create a
postage stamp in his honor.
It was first issued in 1992.
In 1956 von Kármán founded a research institute in Belgium, which is now named after him,
von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics.Specific contributions include theories of
non-elastic buckling, unsteady wakes in circum-cylinder flow, stability of
laminar flow, turbulence, airfoils in steady and unsteady flow,
boundary layers, and supersonic aerodynamics. He made additional contributions in other fields, including elasticity, vibration, heat transfer, and crystallography. His name appears in at least the following concepts:
*
Foppl-von Kármán equations (large deflection of elastic plates)
*
Born-von Kármán lattice model (crystallography)
*
Chaplygin-Kármán-Tsien approximation (potential flow)
*
Falkowich-Kármán equation (transonic flow)
*
von Kármán constant (wall turbulence)
*
Kármán line (aerodynamics/astronautics)
*
Kármán-Howarth equation (turbulence)
*
Kármán-Nikuradse correlation (viscous flow; coauthored by
Johann Nikuradse)
*
Kármán-Pohlhausen parameter (boundary layers)
*
Kármán-Treffz transformation (airfoil theory)
*
Prandtl-von Kármán law (velocity in open channel flow)
*
von Kármán integral equation (boundary layers)
*
von Kármán ogive (supersonic aerodynamics)
*
von Kármán vortex street (flow past cylinder)
*
von Kármán-Tsien compressibility correction* Aerodynamics - Selected Topics in the Light of their Historical Development, (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1954).
* Collected Works, (4 Volumes), Von Karman Institute, Rhode St. Genese, 1975 (limited edition book); also Butterworth Scientific Publ, London 1956. (Many papers from vols. 1 and 2 are in German.)
* From Low Speed Aerodynamics to Astronautics, (Pergamon Press, London, 1961).
* (with L. Edson) The Wind and Beyond - Theodore von Kármán Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder in Space (Little Brown, 1967).
* (with M. A. Biot) Mathematical Methods in Engineering (McGraw Hill,1944).
* At age 81 von Kármán was the recipient of the first
National Medal of Science, bestowed in a White House ceremony by President
John F. Kennedy. He was recognized, "For his leadership in the science and engineering basic to aeronautics; for his effective teaching and related contributions in many fields of mechanics, for his distinguished counsel to the Armed Services, and for his promoting international cooperation in science and engineering."
* Each year since 1960 the
American Society of Civil Engineers has awarded to an individual the
Theodore von Karman Medal, "in recognition of distinguished achievement in engineering mechanics."
* In 2005 von Kármán was named an Honorary Fellow of the
Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC). Fellows of the AEDC are recognized as, "People who have made exceptionally distinguished contributions to the center's flight testing mission."
<div class="references-small">
* S. Goldstein, "Theodore von Kármán, 1881-1963," Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London 12 (1966), 335-365.
* D. S. Halacy, Jr., Father of Supersonic Flight: Theodor von Kármán (1965).
* M. H. Gorn, The Universal Man: Theodore von Kármán's Life in Aeronautics (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, 1992).
* G. Gabrielli, "Theodore von Kármán", Atti Accad. Sci. Torino Cl. Sci. Fis. Mat. Natur. 98 (1963/1964), 471-485.
* J. L. Greenberg and J. R. Goodstein, "Theodore von Kármán and applied mathematics in America," Science 222 (4630) (1983), 1300-1304.
* J. L. Greenberg and J. R. Goodstein, "Theodore von Kármán and applied mathematics in America," A century of mathematics in America II (Providence, R.I., 1989), 467-477.
* R. C. Hall, "Shaping the course of aeronautics, rocketry, and astronautics: Theodore von Kármán, 1881-1963," J. Astronaut. Sci. 26 (4) (1978), 369-386.
* J. Polásek, "Theodore von Kármán and applied mathematics" (Czech), Pokroky Mat. Fyz. Astronom. 28 (6) (1983), 301-310.
* W. R. Sears, "Some recollections of Theodore von Kármán," J. Soc. Indust. Appl. Math. 13 (1965), 175-183.
* W. R. Sears, "Von Kármán: fluid dynamics and other things," Physics today 39 (1986), 34-39.
* F. L. Wattendorf, "Theodore von Kármán, international scientist," Z. Flugwiss. 4 (1956), 163-165.
* F. L. Wattendorf and F. J. Malina, "Theodore von Kármán, 1881-1963," Astronautica Acta 10 (1964), 81.
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