Cathleen Synge Morawetz
Cathleen Synge Morawetz
Cathleen Synge Morawetz was a Canadian mathematician who spent much of her career in the United States. Morawetz's research was mainly in the study of the partial differential equations governing fluid flow, particularly those of mixed type occurring in transonic flow. She was professor emerita at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the New York University, where she had also served
"The women who earned their Ph.D.s in mathematics during the forties and fifties include some of the most distinguished mathematicians and mathematics educators of this century. Julia Robinson, Cathleen Morawetz, and Mary Ellen Rudin are probably the best-known women mathematicians of this generation."
Cathleen Synge Morawetz"For my topic today I have chosen a subject connecting mathematics and aeronautical engineering. The histories of these two subjects are close. It might appear however to the layman that, back in the time of the first powered flight in 1903, aeronautical engineering had little to do with mathematics. The Wright brothers, despite the fact that they had no university education, were well read and learned their art using wind tunnels but it is unlikely that they knew that airfoil theory was connected to the Riemann conformal mapping theorem. But it was also the time of and later who developed and understood that connection and put mathematics solidly behind the new engineering. Since that time each new geernation has discovered new problems that are at the forefront of both fields. One such problem is flight near the speed of sound. This one in fact has puzzled more than one generation."
Cathleen Synge Morawetz
