Bruno Finzi (born 13 January 1899 – 10 September 1974) was an Italian mathematician, engineer and physicist.

Biography

Born at

Gardone Val Trompia Gardone Val Trompia (Brescian: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Brescia, in Lombardy, northern Italy. It is bounded by the comunes of Marcheno and Sarezzo. It is located in the Trompia valley. Gardone received the honorary title of ci ...

, Finzi received in 1920 his Laurea ( MSE) as an engineer and in 1921 as a mathematician at the

University of Pavia The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...

. In 1922 he became an assistant of Umberto Cisotti at the Polytecnico di Milano. In 1931 he became a professor of rational mechanics at the

University of Milan The University of Milan ( it, Università degli Studi di Milano; la, Universitas Studiorum Mediolanensis), known colloquially as UniMi or Statale, is a public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe ...

, but returned in 1947 to the Polytecnico di Milano as the successor to Cisotti and became there director of the Mathematical Institute. From 1949 he was the head of the newly founded Institute of Aeronautics and in 1967 he became the rector of the Polytecnico. His research dealt with various areas of mathematical physics, in particular with hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, elasticity theory and other areas of

continuum mechanics Continuum mechanics is a branch of mechanics that deals with the mechanical behavior of materials modeled as a continuous mass rather than as discrete particles. The French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy was the first to formulate such m ...

, and the theories of special and general relativity. Finzi was an Invited Speaker at the ICM in 1928 in Bologna and in 1932 in Zürich. In 1956 he received the Feltrinelli Prize from the Accademia dei Lincei and in 1933 the Kramer Prize from the Istituto Lombardo. He was elected a member of the

Accademia dei Lincei The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rom ...

. From 1965 to 1969 he was the president of the Associazone Italiana di Meccanica Teorica e Applicata (AIMETA). He died at Milan in 1974.

Selected publications

* with Gino Bozza: ''Resistenza idro ed aerodinamica'', Milan 1935 * ''Meccanica razionale'', Bologna 1946 * with

Maria Pastori Maria Pastori (10 March 1895 - 17 April 1975) was an Italian mathematician. Life Pastori was born in Milan on 10 March 1895, to a family of eight children. The family was of limited means and could not afford education for the children beyond wh ...

: ''Calcolo tensoriale e applicazioni'', Bologna 1949 * ''Lezioni di aerodinamica'', Milan 1953

References

External links

Enciclopdia Treccani, Roberto Maiocchi, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 1997

{{DEFAULTSORT:Finzi, Bruno 20th-century Italian mathematicians 20th-century Italian engineers Members of the Lincean Academy Scientists from Brescia 1899 births 1974 deaths Engineers from Brescia