Siegfried Grossmann (born 28 February 1930) is a German theoretical physicist who has been awarded the

Max Planck Medal The Max Planck medal is the highest award of the German Physical Society , the world's largest organization of physicists, for extraordinary achievements in theoretical physics. The prize has been awarded annually since 1929, with few exceptions, ...

, the major prize for achievements in theoretical physics.

Biography

He was born near Königsberg in Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) and educated at the Pedagogical High School in Berlin, where he graduated in teaching. Whilst training to be a teacher he studied physics, mathematics and chemistry at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

. In 1959 he became an assistant at the university to Günther Ludwig, a respected German theoretical physicist and was promoted to study the inelastic scattering of Hydrogen molecules. He qualified two years later with a work on Quantum Mechanics and from 1963 worked as a conservator at Munich Technical University. In 1964 he obtained an extraordinary professorship at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...

, to which his mentor Ludwig had already moved. In 1968 he was given a full professorship in theoretical physics, retiring in 1998. He is married with three children.

Research

He is considered one of the founders of

nonlinear dynamics In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

and chaos theory. His work on turbulence contributed to an understanding of the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. He provided contributions to the description of a laser using nonlinear dynamics. With Stefan Thomae he produced a value for the

Feigenbaum constant In mathematics, specifically bifurcation theory, the Feigenbaum constants are two mathematical constants which both express ratios in a bifurcation diagram for a non-linear map. They are named after the physicist Mitchell J. Feigenbaum. Hist ...

. He is also one of the leading theoreticians in the fields of fluid dynamics and theory of turbulence, stochastic processes, phase transitions, laser physics, nuclear physics, transport theory, Bose-Einstein condensation and the general statistical physics, as well as mathematical physics and functional analysis.

Honours and awards

In 1991 he was elected a member of the

European Academy of Sciences and Arts The European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA, la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea) is a transnational and interdisciplinary network, connecting about 2,000 recommended scientists and artists worldwide, including 37 Nobel Prize laur ...

. In 1995 he was awarded the prestigious

for outstanding achievements in the field of theoretical physics. In 2006 he received a doctorate from the

University of Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen (german: link=no, Universität Duisburg-Essen) is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded ...

for his work on the theory of turbulence and non-linear dynamics. At the age of 90 he is still scientifically active, publishing research papers every year and giving lectures at conferences and seminars.

Publications

Grossmann wrote over 200 publications in various fields of physics. He also wrote two textbooks on the mathematical foundations of classical theoretical physics and quantum mechanics: * ''Mathematical introductory course for physics''. Teubner, Stuttgart. . * ''Functional analysis with regard to applications in physics: Study book for students of physics and mathematics at universities and technical colleges''. Aula Publishing House, Wiesbaden. .

References

* Based on a translation of the equivalent article on German language Wikipedia {{DEFAULTSORT:Grossmann, Siegfried 1930 births Living people Scientists from Königsberg Free University of Berlin alumni 20th-century German physicists Winners of the Max Planck Medal