Richard von Mises

Richard Edler von Mises (Lemberg 19 April 1883 - Boston, 14 July 1953) was a scientist who worked on fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, aeronautics, statistics and probability theory or, in his own words shortly before his death, on

Life

The son of Arthur Edler von Mises, a Doctor of technical sciences who worked as an expert for the Austrian State Railways and Adele von Landau, he was born in Lemberg in Austria-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine), 18 months after his brother the towering economist Ludwig von Mises (They also had a younger brother, who died as an infant.). He attended the Akademische Gymnasium in Vienna where he graduated with honors in Latin and mathematics in Autumn 1901. After graduating in mathematics, physics and engineering from the Vienna Technische Hochschule (Technical University), he was appointed as Georg Hamel's assistant in Brünn (now Brno). In 1905, still a student, he published an article on "Zur konstruktiven Infinitesimalgeometrie der ebenen Kurven," in the prestigious Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik.

Related Topics:
Austria-Hungary - Lviv - Ukraine - Economist - Ludwig von Mises - Gymnasium - Brno - 1905

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In 1908 Mises was awarded a doctorate from Vienna (dissertation on Die Ermittlung der Schwungmassen im Schubkurbelgetriebe ? The determination of flywheel masses in crank drives) and he received his habilitation from Brünn (on Theorie der Wasserräder ? Theory of the Waterwheels), to lecture on engineering. In 1909, at 26, he was appointed Professor of applied mathematics in Straßburg (now Strasbourg, then in the German empire) and received Prussian citizenship ? while applying for teaching positions at the Technical University in Brünn, and this was interrupted by World War I.

Related Topics:
1908 - 1909 - Strasbourg - World War I

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A pilot who had lectured on the design of aircraft and given in Straßburg the first university course on powered flight in 1913, he then joined the Austro-Hungarian army, flew as a test pilot and an instructor and in 1915, supervised the construction of a 600-horsepower (450 kW) aircraft ? the "Mises-Flugzeug? (Mises aircraft) for the Austrian army. Completed in 1916, it never saw action.

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After the war Mises held the new chair of hydrodynamics and aerodynamics at the Dresden Technische Hochschule. Then in 1919 he was appointed director with full professorship of the new Institute of Applied Mathematics created at the behest of Erhard Schmidt at the University of Berlin. In 1921 he founded the journal Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik and became its editor.

Related Topics:
Dresden - 1919 - Applied Mathematics - 1921

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With the rise of the Nazi party to power in 1933, von Mises ? who was a Roman Catholic but had Jewish ancestry felt his position threatened though he had fought in the war and moved to Turkey where he held the newly created chair of Pure and Applied Mathematics at the University of Istanbul, and then in 1939, amid political uncertainty following the death of Turkish President Atatürk, to the United States, where he was appointed in 1944 Gordon-McKay Professor of Aerodynamics and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University.

Related Topics:
Nazi - Roman Catholic - Jew - Turkey - 1939 - Atatürk - United States - 1944 - Harvard University

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He married Hilda Geiringer in 1943; his assistant at the Institute, she had followed him to Turkey after losing her position in December 1933, and then to the US.

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In 1950 Mises declined an offer of honorary membership from the Communist-dominated East German Academy of Science.

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