Julian David Cole (April 2, 1925 – April 17, 1999) was an American mathematician. He is known for his groundbreaking work in mathematical applications to aerodynamics and transonic flow, and in non-linear equations more generally. He graduated 36 PhD students and won many of the most significant scientific honors over his career, including simultaneous election to the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering in 1976.Bluman, G. ''et al.'' (2000
''Julian D. Cole''
Notices of the American Mathematical Society 47(4), 466-473.Cook, P., Tulin, M. and Flaherty, J. (1999
''Obituaries: Julian Cole''
,

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

Biography

Cole earned an undergraduate degree in engineering from

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, after which he entered Caltech as a graduate student. He worked with

Hans Liepmann Hans Wolfgang Liepmann (July 3, 1914 – June 24, 2009) was an American fluid dynamicist, aerospace scientist and emeritus Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology."Hans Liepmann" at the GALCIT ...

and

Paco Lagerstrom Paco Axel Lagerstrom (February 24, 1914 – February 16, 1989) was an applied mathematician and aeronautical engineer. He was trained formally in mathematics, but worked for much of his career in aeronautical applications. He was known for wo ...

, the latter his advisor, submitting a dissertation on transonic flow in 1949. Lagerstrom and Cole continued their work, having formed a small research group at

GALCIT The Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), was a research institute created in 1926, at first specializing in aeronautics research. In 1930, Hungarian scientist Theodore von Kármán accepted the di ...

to better understand the mathematics of fluid flow. These two, along with

Leon Trilling Leon Trilling (July 15, 1924 Białystok, Poland - April 20, 2018), an aeronautical engineer and historian of technology, was professor emeritus in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Program in Science, Technology, and Socie ...

found that flows having weak shocks could be described by Burgers' equation, for which Cole later found a clever transformation to solve it. Cole continued to delve deeper into this topic for the next decade. Cole took sabbatical in 1963–1964 at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where he wrote a book on this body of work: ''Perturbation Methods in Applied Mathematics''.Kevorkian, J. and Cole, J.D. (1981) ''Perturbation Methods in Applied Mathematics'', Springer-Verlag, 2nd Ed. Cole is the namesake of the

'
Julian Cole Lectureship

Awards

* Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences * Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics * Fellow,

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

* National Academy of Engineering *

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cole, Julian Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Fellows of the American Physical Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty Cornell University alumni California Institute of Technology alumni 1925 births 1999 deaths Fluid dynamicists