Cathleen Synge Morawetz

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Cathleen Synge Morawetz
Birkhoff Prize (2006)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsNew York University
Doctoral advisorKurt Otto Friedrichs

Cathleen Synge Morawetz (May 5, 1923 – August 8, 2017) was a Canadian mathematician who spent much of her career in the United States.[1] 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.[2] She was professor emerita at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the New York University, where she had also served as director from 1984 to 1988.[3] She was president of the American Mathematical Society from 1995 to 1996.[4] She was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1998.[5]

Childhood

Morawetz's father, John Lighton Synge, nephew of John Millington Synge, was an Irish mathematician, specializing in the geometry of general relativity. Her mother also studied mathematics for a time. Her uncle was Edward Hutchinson Synge who is credited as the inventor of the Near-field scanning optical microscope and very large astronomical telescopes, based on multiple mirrors.[6]

Her childhood was split between Ireland and Canada. Both her parents were supportive of her interest in mathematics and science, and it was a woman mathematician, Cecilia Krieger, who had been a family friend for many years and later encouraged Morawetz to pursue a PhD in mathematics. Morawetz said her father was influential in stimulating her interest in mathematics, but he wondered whether her studying mathematics would be wise (suggesting they might fight like the Bernoulli brothers).[3]

Education

A 1945 graduate of the University of Toronto, she married Herbert Morawetz, a chemist, on October 28, 1945. She received her master's degree in 1946 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Morawetz got a job at New York University where she edited Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves by Richard Courant and Kurt Otto Friedrichs. She earned her Ph.D. in 1951 at New York University, with a thesis on the stability of a spherical implosion, under the supervision of Kurt Otto Friedrichs.[3][7] Her thesis was entitled Contracting Spherical Shocks Treated by a Perturbation Method[3]

Career

After earning her doctorate, she spent a year as a research associate at

transonic flows
. Even if an aircraft remains subsonic, the air flowing around the wing can reach supersonic velocity. The mix of air at supersonic and subsonic velocity creates shock waves that can slow the airplane.

Turning to the mathematics of

transonic flow, she showed that specially designed shockless airfoils could not, in fact, prevent shocks. Shocks developed in response to even small perturbations, such as a gust of wind or an imperfection in a wing.[8] This discovery opened up the problem of developing a theory for a flow with shocks. Subsequently, the shocks she predicted mathematically now have been observed in experiments as air flows around the wing of a plane.[1]

In 1957 she became an assistant professor at Courant. At this point she began to work more closely with her colleagues publishing important joint papers with Peter Lax and Ralph Phillips on the decay of solutions to the wave equation around a star shaped obstacle. She continued with important solo work on the wave equation and transonic flow around a profile until she was promoted to full professor by 1965.

At this point her research expanded to a variety of problems including papers on the

scattering theory and the nonlinear wave equation. She proved what is now known as the Morawetz Inequality. She died on August 8, 2017, in New York City.[9]

Honors

In 1980, Morawetz won a

Noether Lecturer. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984.[12] She was named Outstanding Woman Scientist for 1993 by the Association for Women in Science.[3] In 1995, she became the second woman elected to the office of president of the American Mathematical Society.[3]

In 1996, she was awarded an honorary ScD degree by

George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics.[3] In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[15]

Morawetz was a member of the

National Academy of Sciences[16] and was the first woman to belong to the Applied Mathematics Section of that organization.[3]

Publications

Personal life

Morawetz lived in Greenwich Village with her husband Herbert Morawetz, a polymer chemist. They had four children, eight grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. Their children are Pegeen Rubinstein, John, Lida Jeck, and Nancy Morawetz (a professor at New York University School of Law who manages its Immigrant Rights Clinic).

Upon being honored by the National Organization for Women for successfully combining career and family, Morawetz quipped, "Maybe I became a mathematician because I was so crummy at housework." She said her current non-mathematical interests are "grandchildren and sailing."[3]

References

  1. ^ a b O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Cathleen Synge Morawetz", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  2. ^ Science Lives: Cathleen Morawetz Simons Foundation
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Knowles, Tyler. "Cathleen Morawetz". Biographies of Women Mathematicians. Agnes Scott College. Retrieved April 4, 2014.
  4. ^ "Cathleen Synge Morawetz". American Mathematical Society. Retrieved January 17, 2024.
  5. ^ Jackson, Allyn (March 1999). "Cathleen Morawetz Receives National Medal of Science" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 46 (3): 352.
  6. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "John Lighton Synge", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  7. ^ Cathleen Synge Morawetz at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. ^ Chang, Kenneth, Cathleen Morawetz, 94; used math in study of motion, New York Times, August 13, 2017, p. 18
  9. ^ Paid death notice The New York Times, Aug 10, 2017
  10. JSTOR 2320747
    .
  11. MR 0640941
    .
  12. ^ "Cathleen Synge Morawetz". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  13. ^ Honorary Degree Recipients 1972–2018 Trinity College Dublin
  14. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-12-16.
  15. ^ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 2013-02-10.
  16. ^ "Cathleen Synge Morawetz". nasonline.org. Retrieved 2021-12-16.

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