Willem Jacob van Stockum (20 November 1910 – 10 June 1944) was a Dutch mathematician who made an important contribution to the early development of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

Biography

Van Stockum was born in

Hattem Hattem () is a municipality and a town in the eastern Netherlands. The municipality had a population of in . The municipality includes the hamlet of 't Zand. Name origin The name “Hattem” is a typical farmyard name. The exact origin of “H ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. His father was a mechanically talented officer in the

Dutch Navy The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

. After the family (less the father) relocated to Ireland in the late 1920s, Willem studied mathematics at

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, where he earned a gold medal. He went on to earn an M.A. from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

and his Ph.D. from the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. In the mid-1930s, van Stockum became an early enthusiast of the then new theory of gravitation, general relativity. In 1937, he published a paper which contains one of the first exact solutions in general relativity which modeled the gravitational field produced by a configuration of ''rotating'' matter, the

van Stockum dust In general relativity, the van Stockum dust is an exact solution of the Einstein field equations in which the gravitational field is generated by dust rotating about an axis of cylindrical symmetry. Since the density of the dust is ''increasing' ...

, which remains an important example noted for its unusual simplicity. In this paper, van Stockum was apparently the first to notice the possibility of

closed timelike curve In mathematical physics, a closed timelike curve (CTC) is a world line in a Lorentzian manifold, of a material particle in spacetime, that is "closed", returning to its starting point. This possibility was first discovered by Willem Jacob van St ...

s, one of the strangest and most disconcerting phenomena in general relativity. Van Stockum left for the United States in hope of studying under

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

, eventually in the spring of 1939 gaining a temporary position under Professor

Oswald Veblen Oswald Veblen (June 24, 1880 – August 10, 1960) was an American mathematician, geometer and topologist, whose work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905; while this was lon ...

at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

. The outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

occurred while he was teaching at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

. Anxious to join the fight against Hitler, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force, eventually earning his pilots wings in July 1942. Because of his advanced knowledge of

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

, he spent much of the next year as a test pilot in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. After the Netherlands was invaded by Hitler, van Stockum sought to join the war as a pilot. Finally, he was able to transfer to the

Dutch Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = ''Parade March of the Royal Netherlands Air Force'' , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment ...

(in exile), and in 1944 became the only Dutch officer posted to No. 10 Sqron of the RAF Bomber Command, which was stationed in

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

and flew combat missions in the ''Halifax'' heavy bomber over Europe before and after the Normandy invasion. On 10 June 1944, van Stockum and his crew of six took off on their sixth combat mission, as part of another 400-plane raid. Near their target, the plane was hit by flak, and all seven crew members were lost, along with seven from another bomber on the same mission. The fourteen airmen are buried in Laval, near the place where the planes went down.

References

Willem Jacob van Stockum: A scientist in uniform
''De Vliegende Hollander'' (''The Flying Dutchman''), June 2004 (English translation by Carlo Beenakker). A newspaper article by an officer in the

Dutch Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = ''Parade March of the Royal Netherlands Air Force'' , mascot = , anniversaries = , equipment ...

, on which this article is largely based.
A soldier's creed
an essay written by van Stockum and published (under the byline "''a bomber pilot''", due to wartime security restrictions) in December 1944. * The original paper presenting the rediscovery of Lanczos' 1924 dust solution, nowadays referred to as the Lanczos-van Stockum solution.
''Time Bomber''
Historical fiction by Robert P. Wack. Set in Normandy in June 1944. Willem is a central character. {{DEFAULTSORT:Stockum, Willem Jacob van Dutch relativity theorists People from Hattem 1910 births 1944 deaths Alumni of the University of Edinburgh 20th-century Dutch mathematicians Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Royal Air Force pilots of World War II Royal Air Force personnel killed in World War II Aviators killed by being shot down