The Hungarian-born American physicist Theodore von Kármán (1881-1963) made significant contributions to the fields of hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, and thermodynamics.

Theodore von Kármán was born on May 11, 1881, in Budapest. His father, a professor of education, founded the Minta Model Gymnasium, where Theodore was enrolled at the age of nine. There he learned the inductive reasoning approach which he practiced all his life. In 1898 he entered the Royal Joseph University of Polytechnics and Economics in Budapest, the only engineering school in Hungary, graduating with distinction in 1902. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army for a year and then returned to the Royal Joseph as assistant professor.

Professional Accomplishments

Von Kármán's first major contribution to the study of engineering materials was the extension of the Euler theory of elastic-column buckling to an explanation of inelastic buckling (published 1906). That same year...