A Scientific Genius Dancing in the Wind: Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of von Karman's Death

Theodore von Karman is a representative figure in the field of human spaceflight. He was an aerodynamicist, engineer, and applied mathematician. He practiced and emphasized "using mathematics to guide engineering research", and his achievements influenced the world situation. He is also remembered by the Chinese for training many Chinese disciples, especially his academic inheritance and cooperation with Qian Xuesen, which has become a good story. 2023 is the 60th anniversary of von Karman's death. This article is dedicated to commemorate this scientific genius.

Written by Ding Jiu (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Southern Mississippi)

Sixty years ago, on the morning of February 18, 1963, an 81-year-old man, surrounded by friends from all over the world, stood in the Rose Garden of the White House, waiting to receive the first National Medal of Science. When President Kennedy arrived accompanied by his assistants, the group went to the reception area. The old man, who suffered from arthritis, dragged his feet and stopped at the stairs, as if in pain. The president quickly walked to his side and held his arm.

He looked up at the young President and gently shook off the unsolicited assistance.

"Mr. President," he said with a sad smile, "we don't need help going down, only going up."

This may be his last famous quote left in the world, recorded in the beginning of the preface "Working with Genius" written by biographer Lee Edson for his autobiography (this autobiography was dictated by the subject and completed in collaboration with Edson for many years). In the spring of 1995, when I borrowed this book from the library of the university where I taught and read it, I was deeply fascinated by the subject's humor. After reading the book, I found that the humorous stories in his life accompanied his amazing scientific achievements, just like the key word "wind" in the title of the autobiography The Wind and Beyond, blowing across the pages of the book.

The old man's full name is Theodore von Kármán (May 11, 1881-May 6, 1963). He was the greatest aerodynamicist in the world at that time. He was awarded by the US government "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."

The first medal of the National Science Medal established by the United States was not awarded to a mathematician like André Weil (1906-1998), a physicist like Richard Feynman (1918-1988), a chemist like Linus Pauling (1901-1994), or a biologist like James Watson (1928-), but to an aerodynamicist because his contribution to the country was unparalleled among outstanding American scientists, and even helped change the course of human history. If his fellow mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957) was still alive at that time, perhaps only the latter would have been qualified to compete with him for this supreme honor. This world-renowned mechanic received excellent training in mathematics and physics when he was young, and in fact he was an outstanding applied mathematician. He widely applied mathematics to the practice of mechanics, and even his humorous words when thanking the president for helping him were uttered with the wisdom of a mechanic.

President Kennedy presents the Nobel Prize to von Karman (1963)

Three months after winning the award, von Karman died while traveling in Aachen, Germany, just five days before his 82nd birthday. Born in Hungary, he was a child prodigy like von Neumann, who was one of the few "people from Mars" because of his unattainable talent. He was buried in Southern California, where he worked for a long time at the California Institute of Technology. He never married and slept there with his mother and sister, who never married. He had a legendary life, vivid stories, and great achievements. He was a great man of his generation who deserves to be praised.

The beginning of genius

Von Karman was a Jew born in Budapest during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Mór Kármán (1843-1915), was a famous educator who advocated gifted education. He reformed the Hungarian school system and founded the Minta Gymnasium in Budapest on the German model. The Minta Gymnasium, together with two other elite Hungarian secondary schools, the Fasori Lutheran Gymnasium and the Piarist Gymnasium, produced a number of world-class talents: von Karman, mathematicians Alfred Rényi (1920-1971) and Peter Lax (1926-), physicists Leo Szilard (1898-1964) and Edward Teller (1908-2003) graduated from the former; Nobel Prize winners in physics Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) and von Neumann graduated from Fasori Lutheran one year apart; the revolutionary poet Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849) was a graduate of Piarist. Mór Kármán served as Commissioner of Education, responsible for "planning the education of the young Grand Duke, the Emperor's cousin", and was ennobled in 1907.

Von Karman's father had long discovered his son's precocity and put his own educational philosophy into practice on his son. At the age of six, von Karman could do "large mental arithmetic", such as multiplication of six digits. We also read similar records in von Neumann's biography. It seems that testing the ability of multi-digit multiplication mental arithmetic is a necessary condition to confirm whether a child is a "genius". It is simple and practical. If this test fails, parents don't have to spend money and energy to send their children to Olympiad classes or similar places. I myself lacked the ability of multi-digit multiplication mental arithmetic since I was a child, so my parents just let me develop freely and never interfered. This not only avoided their troubles, but also allowed me to basically develop to the limit of my IQ.

Von Karman's father did not encourage his son to receive mathematical education too early, fearing that he would become a child prodigy and a freak, which was consistent with Yang Zhenning's father Yang Wuzhi's approach to smart children. His father taught him personally or asked his own students to teach him until he was sent to Minta Middle School at the age of ten. In his last year of middle school, von Karman won the Eötvös Award for "the best student in mathematics and science in Hungary".

Since von Karman's high school alma mater has produced many people like him who have left their names in history, let's see how he, who is also remembered as an educator by later generations, looks back on the school founded by his father:

"Everything was taught by showing its connection to everyday life. For example, in our first Latin class, I remember that we did not start with grammatical rules. Instead, we were told to walk around the city and copy inscriptions on statues, churches, and museums. … When we collected these phrases and brought them to class, the teacher asked us which words we already knew. We could usually recognize several of the words in the phrase. If not, we looked them up. Then he asked us if we recognized different forms of the same word. Why were the forms different? Because they showed different relationships to other words in the inscription. We continued like this until we understood each phrase and why it was placed on the monument."

“The mathematics I studied so eagerly was taught in the light of everyday statistics. … For example, we looked up data on wheat production in Hungary over several years. We set up tables and then made graphs so that we could observe the changes and find the maximum and minimum values ​​of wheat production. In the graphs we looked for correlations and learned about ‘rates of change,’ which brought us to the brink of calculus. Thus we learned in a practical way that there are certain relationships between changing quantities, and, as with Latin, we simultaneously learned about the changing social and economic forces in the country.”

In his fascinating autobiography, narrated by von Karman and published four years after his death, he further said that at that school "students no longer had to learn books by rote, but looked up figures, drew diagrams, sought correlations between varying quantities, or derived from Latin words collected in daily life some of the elementary rules of inflection and declension of Latin nouns and verbs."

In 1899, von Karman entered the Royal Joseph Technical University in the city to study engineering. He graduated three years later with a degree in mechanical engineering. His graduation thesis was "The Motion of a Heavy Rod with a Round End Supported by a Horizontal Plane". He then served as an artillery cadet in the Austro-Hungarian Army for a year. For the next three years, he worked as an assistant at his alma mater. In 1906, he joined the mechanics master Ludwig Prandtl (1875-1953) at the University of Göttingen, a major academic center in Germany. He received his doctorate degree from him in 1908. His research topic was "Mathematical Models for Buckling of Large Structures". This was the beginning of "using mathematical theory to guide engineering research", which he particularly emphasized and tried to practice throughout his life.

Aviation Pioneer

Von Karman's career began in Göttingen, where not only was there David Hilbert (1862-1943), the "Alexander of the mathematical world", but also a group of active theoretical physicists who were beginning to emerge in the quantum world. Von Karman absorbed rich nutrients from both the worlds of mathematics and physics. He took cutting-edge mathematics courses, participated in seminars, and did theoretical physics research with Max Born (1882-1970). In the end, he chose mechanics, especially applied mechanics, as his lifelong research field, and displayed his outstanding talents in aviation practice.

After receiving his doctorate, von Karman stayed at the University of Göttingen to teach for four years. In 1913, he was invited to serve as the dean of the School of Aviation at the Technical University of Aachen. The First World War broke out the following year. From 1915 to 1918, he and two other Hungarian and Czech engineers designed early helicopters for the Austro-Hungarian army, named after the three people: Petróczy-Kármán-Žurovec. After the war, he returned to Aachen with his mother and sister Josephine (Josephine de Karman). In the following years, in addition to immersing himself in theoretical research, von Karman also developed gliders with a group of like-minded German aviation engineers as an opportunity to develop aerodynamics.

It is often said that behind every successful man stands a great woman, and this woman is usually the man’s wife. However, in von Karman’s case, this woman was his only sister. For von Karman’s great career, she even remained unmarried, just like he remained unmarried for the rest of his life. She accompanied him and took care of him for most of his life. This is a rare family devotion in the world. Perhaps only the mother of the legendary Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös (1913-1996), who also remained unmarried for the rest of his life, can be compared with her. Erdös’ mother accompanied her son on mathematical trips around the world until her death. Josephine encouraged her brother to expand his research beyond national borders, so von Karman organized the first International Congress of Mechanics in 1922, with the theme of fluid dynamics and aerodynamics. On page 104 of his autobiography, von Karman recalled:

"I managed to get a meeting with Dr. Tullio Levi-Civita, a distinguished mathematician at the University of Rome, and we decided to hold the first International Congress of Mechanics. We sent invitations to the French, British and Americans, and met with their former enemies, the Germans, Austrians and Hungarians, in Innsbruck, Austria. My sister and I paid for the secretary out of our own pockets."

Two years later, the first International Congress of Applied Mechanics was held in Delft, the Netherlands. In 1946, the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics was established at the Sixth International Congress of Applied Mechanics held in Paris. This kind of mechanics conference that fully reflects von Karman's concept of international communication has lasted for a hundred years.

Von Karman, who was beginning to make a name for himself in the European scientific community, also helped old Neumann with his future career planning. According to his recollections in his autobiography, the banker father of the 17-year-old boy was disturbed by his son's self-taught concept of "infinity" in mathematics, so he took him to see von Karman, hoping that the engineering professor would persuade his son not to become a mathematician, as he said, "mathematics doesn't make money." After talking with the boy, von Karman thought of his father's experience of not letting him get in touch with mathematics too early, but it did not prevent him from eventually learning the true meaning of mathematics, so this was not a bad thing, so he suggested a compromise plan to the banker: von Neumann studied chemical engineering, which his father required, and pure mathematics, which he loved, at two universities in different countries at the same time - the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. As a result, the genius got a degree in chemical engineering without taking almost any classes, and wrote a mathematical paper on set theory before he was 20 years old.

Von Karman's relationship with the United States began with a telegram sent to him by Robert Millikan (1868-1953), Nobel Prize winner in physics and president of the California Institute of Technology, in 1926, inviting him to visit the United States, hoping that he would help the thriving young university establish an aviation laboratory and build a wind tunnel. Wind tunnels are used to test the aerodynamic effects of aircraft, rockets, cars and even buildings. In the entire wind tunnel device, an object remains stationary in a large pipe, and air blows around it to study the interaction between the object and the moving air.

Von Karman was full of humor throughout his life, and his oral autobiography recorded many humorous stories. One of them was related to his first trip to the United States. After visiting Caltech from Europe, von Karman also went to MIT and other institutions to give speeches. He was interviewed by a reporter in San Francisco, the last stop before leaving the United States to visit Japan. Due to his strong Hungarian accent, the reporter mistakenly heard that his purpose of coming to the United States was to visit the "laboratory" when answering questions, and heard it as visiting the "washroom", which was completely unrelated. The English words "laboratory" and "lavatory" are similar, so they can be mistaken if you are not careful. A Chinese professor who was invited to teach at a top university in China more than ten years ago has a double doctorate from a prestigious American university and has remarkable academic achievements. However, during a casual chat after dinner at a meeting overseas, he humorously ridiculed himself to a Chinese professor: When he taught at an Ivy League school in the United States, his English pronunciation was really bad. Perhaps he finally couldn't stand it anymore, fled the foreign country, and returned to his native language world to teach and educate people. I believe that many Chinese scholars who study and teach in the United States have trouble with inaccurate English pronunciation.

Von Karman's visit that year made Caltech determined to establish the first-class aerodynamic research base in the United States. In 1930, the school officially offered him a full-time position as the director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory. At this time, Nazism was rampant in Germany, which made the Jewish von Karman deeply worried, so he decided to leave Europe, and his family of three, including his mother and sister, moved to Los Angeles, Southern California, where the climate was pleasant. He sat in the office chair of the laboratory director until 1949, and then gave up his seat to Clark Millikan (1903-1966), the son of President Millikan who invited him to the United States and an outstanding aeronautic scientist.

California Years

Since 1930, von Karman has gradually built Caltech into a world center for aerodynamics, and has also trained a number of successful PhD students, including several well-known Chinese scholars. He is not only known for his creative research, but also for his excellent teaching skills.

The Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory that von Karman took over was built in 1926, and its initial research focus was on aviation. Under his leadership, the laboratory began missile research in 1936; that year, Qian Xuesen (1911-2009) transferred from MIT to Caltech to become his disciple. Until 1940, this laboratory was the only missile research center in American universities; in November 1943, the famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory was officially established at Caltech under a contract with the US Army. Von Karman served as its director since its initial stage five years ago, and was succeeded by his student Frank Malina (1912-1981) in 1944.

During World War II, the U.S. military became more interested in rocket research after learning that Germany was secretly developing missiles. In early 1943, von Karman received intelligence forwarded from the U.S. military engineering department from Britain, informing him that the range of Germany's rockets had exceeded one hundred miles. Six months later, von Karman provided the military with his analysis and comments on the German plan in a letter. In early September of the following year, while recuperating in New York due to illness, he met with General Henry Arnold (1886-1950), commander of the U.S. Army Air Force, in a sedan at the end of an airport runway (Arnold was promoted to a five-star general on December 21 of that year). The latter then suggested that he go to Washington, D.C., to lead the general's scientific advisory group and become a long-term planning consultant for the military. On October 23, the official appointment letter was issued, and from then on, von Karman's main activity venue shifted from the West Coast to the East Coast, contributing his scientific wisdom to the strategic development of the U.S. military in large doses. A month later, Qian Xuesen, who was already an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology, joined the scientific advisory group of more than 30 people and became one of the six core members working full-time, working at the Pentagon for more than a year.

Both von Karman's witty autobiography and the Chinese-American writer Iris Chang's (1968-2004) serious biography of Qian Xuesen, Thread of the Silkworm, include a photo of three generations of teachers and students - an unusual meeting between Prandtl, von Karman and Qian Xuesen in Germany in the late spring of 1945. In World War II, Prandtl served in the country under Hitler's rule, while his outstanding disciple and the latter's outstanding disciple fought to bury the Nazis and were completing a secret technical mission - asking Germany's top scientists about the latest developments in aerodynamics there. In order to facilitate the operation, von Karman, the head of the technical expedition, was "awarded" the rank of major general by the military, and Qian Xuesen was colonel. The scene of the meeting was a bit awkward, because the senior teacher played the role of almost a "prisoner", but his scientific contributions are world-famous. His only female graduate student and the only Chinese student was Lu Shijia (1911-1986) from China, who obtained her doctorate under the guidance of this founder of modern fluid mechanics in 1942. At the end of 2022, "The Biography of Prandtl: Prandtl in Memoirs and Letters" written by Prandtl's daughter was translated by Chinese mechanic Sun Bohua and six of his graduate students and published by Higher Education Press.

Prandtl, von Karman, Qian Xuesen (1945)

Contribution to science and education

Von Karman's contributions to mankind are multifaceted. Thirty years ago, a biography of von Karman was published in the United States, with the title "The Universal Man", but his academic achievements were mainly in aerodynamics, and his scientific and educational ideas - including his interpretation and emphasis on applied mathematics - had a more far-reaching impact.

It is impossible and unnecessary to introduce von Karman's academic achievements in detail in this section. We only need to list several of his milestone works and focus on his attitude towards applied mathematics.

When von Karman was young, he conducted microscopic physics and mechanics research at the University of Göttingen, which laid the foundation for his later extensive research in applied mechanics. In macroscopic fluid mechanics and aerodynamics, his contributions include inelastic buckling, unsteady wake in annular cylindrical flow, laminar stability, turbulence, airfoils in steady and unsteady flow, boundary layers, and supersonic aerodynamic theory. He also made many important contributions in other fields, including elasticity, vibration, heat transfer, and crystallography.

There are 22 scientific concepts and terms listed in the English Wikipedia that contain the prefix "von Karman". Two of them - "Born-von Karman boundary conditions" and "Born-von Karman lattice model" belong to solid state physics; one is the "von Karman-Prandtl equation" (the law of velocity of water flow in open channels) discovered by him and his doctoral supervisor Prandtl; two include the contribution of his doctoral student Qian Xuesen - "Zoplygin-von Karman-Qian approximation" and "von Karman-Qian compressibility correction" (Sergei Alekseevich Chaplygin (1869-1942), academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and theoretical mechanic, is one of the founders of modern aerofluid dynamics), and nine are entirely his own honor.

Wikipedia introduced von Karman as "a Hungarian-American mathematician, aerospace engineer and physicist who worked in aerospace." This is accurate because he was indeed a "mathematician in engineer's guise"; his student Qian Xuesen's doctorate even belonged to two disciplines: aerospace and mathematics. This is the most ideal identity for an applied science explorer, that is, when an ambitious engineer becomes an outstanding applied mathematician, his ambitions may be fully realized. Von Karman not only successfully underwent abstract mathematical thinking training at an early age, but also creatively used mathematical knowledge and methods to solve difficult engineering problems. In an article, he expounded his views and hopes on applied mathematics.

The foreword of the first issue of the Quarterly of Applied Mathematics published by Brown University in the United States in April 1943 was a short article written by von Karman titled Tooling up mathematics for engineering (Editor's note: see von Karman: Tooling up mathematics for engineering science). He used the dialogue between mathematicians and engineers to show the basic views of the two groups on the "relationship between mathematics and engineering", and achieved mutual understanding and mutual support through communication. The conclusion at the end of the article expressed the common wishes and code of conduct of mathematicians and engineers:

Engineers: Mathematicians who intend to pursue research in applied mathematics must have a reasonably good understanding of the physical processes involved. Engineers, on the other hand, must study the basics of analysis in sufficient depth to be able to use mathematical tools properly. An arbitrary assemblage of machine tools does not make an efficient machine shop. We know that you have powerful machine tools in your mathematical arsenal. The task before us is to know how to adapt and apply them.

Mathematician: I think you have a point. To take the analogy further, in order to implement solutions to engineering problems, you need some kind of tool designers. These are the true applied mathematicians. Their original backgrounds may be different; they may come from pure mathematics, physics, or engineering, but their common goal is to "equip" mathematics for engineering.

Chinese Destiny

Von Karman first came to Beijing in 1928 and suggested that Tsinghua University, which had just been upgraded from Tsinghua School to a national university, develop aviation science. In early July 1937, he came to China for the second time and was delighted to see that Tsinghua's aviation department had begun to take shape, with a small wind tunnel built. Gu Yuxiu (1902-2002), the dean of the School of Engineering and a doctor of electrical engineering from MIT, served as the director of the Institute of Aeronautics. The day after arriving in Beijing, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out. Fortunately, von Karman took the night train south on July 6 and avoided a difficult situation. On the 8th, he arrived in Nanjing and exchanged views with Air Force Commander Zhou Zhirou (1899-1986). After the meeting on the morning of the 10th, he flew to the newly built Nanchang Air Force Base to guide the construction of the wind tunnel. On the 14th, he first flew to Jiujiang, and then took a bamboo sedan chair for two hours, which made him shudder, "as if he had been two weeks long", and traveled through the steep mountain road to meet Chiang Kai-shek and his wife in Lushan to discuss the establishment of China's aviation industry and air force to fight against the Japanese invaders. At the request of Soong Mei-ling, he taught her about wind tunnels on the spot. Unfortunately, all efforts were in vain. The next year, the Japanese army captured Nanchang, and the built wind tunnel was also destroyed in the war. Most Chinese people know that von Karman trained several Chinese mechanics leaders, but we should also remember that he tried his best to help us at the beginning of the full-scale war of resistance against Japan.

One of the main reasons why von Karman is remembered by contemporary Chinese is that he trained Qian Xuesen, the "father of Chinese missiles." For most people who have completed their doctoral degrees, their academic interactions with their doctoral thesis supervisors generally decrease, and may even decay to zero according to an exponential law, but Qian Xuesen is an exception.

After graduating from Jiaotong University, the gifted Qian Xuesen was admitted to Tsinghua University to study in the United States on a government scholarship. In September 1935, he went to the Department of Aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A year later, he was dissatisfied with the aeronautics department and transferred to Caltech. The door of von Karman was opened to him. Why did von Karman immediately recruit him? The answer can be found in von Karman's autobiography:

"One day in 1936, he came to me for advice on further graduate studies. It was our first meeting. I looked up and saw a young man of somewhat short stature, serious-looking, who answered my questions with extraordinary precision. I was impressed by the sharpness and flexibility of his mind, and I suggested that he enter Caltech for further study."

In the next paragraph, von Karman summarized his student's qualifications:

"Qian agreed. He worked with me on many mathematical problems. I found him to be quite imaginative, mathematically gifted, and able to accurately visualize the physical picture of natural phenomena. Even as a young student, he helped me to clarify some of my thoughts on several difficult problems. These were talents I did not often encounter, and Qian and I became close colleagues."

On the same page of his autobiography, von Karman also told a story. Professor Paul S. Epstein (1883-1966) of the Department of Physics told him:

"Your student Qian Xuesen is in my class. He is extremely talented."

“Yes, he is fine,” von Karman replied.

“Tell me,” Epstein said with a twinkle in his eye, “do you think he has Jewish ancestry?”

The above content is from Chapter 38 of the book, "Dr. Tsien of Red China", which is dedicated to Qian Xuesen. The book has 44 chapters in total. Except for Chapter 23, "Born, Fermi, and Einstein", which tells the story of him and these three friends and great physicists, no other chapter has a title like Chapter 38 that focuses on one person. This is the pride of both Qian Xuesen and von Karman. Of course, not only was Qian Xuesen von Karman's "most brilliant student", but the former's unique experience of a long struggle with the US government from 1950 to 1955, as well as the teacher's participation in the rescue process, made this chapter a must-write in the book, recording the legend of a Chinese aerodynamicist.

Qian Xuesen spent a total of 20 years in the United States. Except for the first year, he was closely connected with von Karman for the remaining 19 years. After receiving his doctorate in aeronautics and mathematics with second-class honors (magna cum laude) on June 9, 1939, he stayed in the department as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1945. The following year, he was hired as an associate professor by the Department of Aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was promoted to full professor in 1947. In 1949, on the recommendation of von Karman, he returned to his alma mater as the Robert H. Goddard Professor of Jet Propulsion and served as the director of the newly established Jet Propulsion Center. Goddard (1882-1945), an American engineer and physicist, built the world's first liquid-fueled rocket. On March 16, 1926, he successfully launched a rocket, ushering in a new era of space flight.

In 1955, before returning to China, Qian Xuesen gave his teacher his new book Engineering Cybernetics when he said goodbye to von Karman. According to what Qian Xuesen said before his death, his teacher said to him when he flipped through the book: "You have surpassed me in academics." Out of national pride, the Chinese who read this sentence must be very proud. However, in the preface to Qian's English biography Silk written by Iris Chang, the author wrote:

“There is no doubt that Qian Xuesen was a brilliant, first-rate scholar, but his colleagues repeatedly stressed to me that he was not on the same level as Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, or even his mentor at Caltech, Theodore von Karman. Qian may have worked on theoretical problems that were useful to American aerodynamicists, but he never revolutionized or created his own field. If Qian had died in 1955 and never visited China, his life would not be worthy of a first-rate biography.”

Zhang Chunru quoted some comments from experts she interviewed, such as:

"Martin Summerfield, a friend of Qian's and a former professor of aeronautics at Princeton, said: 'He didn't have the same vision as von Karman, Einstein, Teller or any of the other great men. His vision was different from theirs. He would perform their calculations and be their right-hand man, but he was not the mastermind. I think what he took away was this ability to copy what they had done.'"

Although in the eyes of these Western experts, Qian Xuesen has not yet reached the level of scientific giants such as von Karman in terms of academics, he has made unparalleled contributions to the missile and aerospace industry after returning to his motherland. As strategic scientists, the two have dedicated their lives to their respective countries. Von Karman was awarded the first National Science Award in the United States, and Qian Xuesen deservedly won the only honorary title of "National Outstanding Contribution Scientist" in China so far.

In addition, at least three Chinese people received doctoral degrees from von Karman, namely Hu Ning (1916-1997; 1943), Lin Jiaqiao (1916-2013; 1944) and Guo Yonghuai (1909-1968; 1945). Qian Weichang (1912-2010), who studied for a master's degree at the University of Toronto with John Synge (1897-1995) and the latter two, continued to study for a doctorate with him before his mentor moved to the United States to teach a year later, and then went to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. Therefore, he was not a disciple of von Karman in the strict sense, but an engineer under him. He and Lin Jiaqiao each published a paper in the first issue of the Quarterly Journal of Applied Mathematics, which published von Karman's famous inaugural speech.

Later, Hu Ning became a famous theoretical physicist in China; Lin Jiaqiao taught at the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a long time, became the highest level "college professor" and was selected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. In his later years, he returned to Tsinghua University as the honorary director of the "Zhou Peiyuan Applied Mathematics Research Center"; Guo Yonghuai returned to China in 1956 as a full professor of the Department of Aeronautics at Cornell University. He died in a plane crash when he was nearly 60 years old. In 1999, he was posthumously awarded the "Two Bombs and One Satellite" Medal of Merit by the state.

Von Karman made an indelible contribution to the growth of a generation of mechanical heroes of the Chinese nation!

Written on Wednesday, July 13, 2023

Hattiesburg Summer House

Produced by: Science Popularization China

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