Hermann Flaschka
Encyclopedia
Herman Flaschka is a well-known Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n born mathematical physicist and Professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

, known for his important contributions in completely integrable systems (soliton
Soliton
In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a self-reinforcing solitary wave that maintains its shape while it travels at constant speed. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium...

 equations).

Childhood

He's been living in the USA since his family immigrated when he was a teenager. They lived in Atlanta, GA. His father Hermenegild Arved Flaschka (1915 - ) taught Chemistry at Georgia Tech. Hermann graduated from Druid Hills High School
Druid Hills High School
Druid Hills High School is a high school operated by the DeKalb County School System. It is located at 1798 Haygood Drive, in the Druid Hills CDP in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States...

 with the class of 1962 and received his Bachelor's degree at Georgia Tech in 1967.
Among other achievements there he also received the "William Gilmer Perry Awards for Freshman English" in 1963, despite the fact that he's not a native speaker.

Career

He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 in 1970. His advisor was Gilbert Strang
Gilbert Strang
William Gilbert Strang , usually known as simply Gilbert Strang or Gil Strang, is a renowned American mathematician, with contributions to finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis and linear algebra...

 and the title of his thesis Asymptotic Expansions and Hyperbolic Equations with Multiple Characteristics.
He then worked as post-doc at the Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

 until 1972. Currently he is Professor at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

.

He has lectured as visiting professor at several institutions, among them the Clarkson University
Clarkson University
-The Clarkson School:The Clarkson School, a special division of Clarkson University, was founded in 1978 as a unique educational opportunity. The School offers students an early entrance opportunity into college, replacing the typical senior year of high school with a year of college...

 (1978/79), the Kyoto RIMS
Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences
The is a research institute attached to Kyoto University, hosting researchers in the mathematical sciences from all over Japan. The institute is often abbreviated as RIMS...

 (1980/81) and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:...

 (2002).

In 1995 he received the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics.

Work

He made important contributions to the theory of completely integrable systems in particular the Toda lattice and the Korteweg–de Vries equation.

In 1980 he co-founded Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena for which he also served as co-editor for many years. Publisher Elsevier
Elsevier
Elsevier is a publishing company which publishes medical and scientific literature. It is a part of the Reed Elsevier group. Based in Amsterdam, the company has operations in the United Kingdom, USA and elsewhere....

 now lists him as honorary editor.

External links

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