Cathleen Synge Morawetz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Cathleen S. Morawetz
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | May 5, 1923 |
| Died | August 8, 2017 (aged 94) New York City, New York, U.S.A.
|
| Nationality | Canadian, American |
| Alma mater | New York University University of Toronto |
| Known for | partial differential equations of mixed type, aerodynamics, supersonic flows, shock waves |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | New York University |
| Doctoral advisor | Kurt Otto Friedrichs |
Cathleen Synge Morawetz (born May 5, 1923 – died August 8, 2017) was a brilliant Canadian mathematician. She spent most of her career in the United States. Her main work was studying partial differential equations. These are special math equations that describe how fluids flow, especially at very high speeds.
Cathleen Morawetz was a professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. She even served as the director there from 1984 to 1988. In 1998, she received the National Medal of Science, which is a very high honor for scientists in the U.S.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Cathleen Morawetz grew up in a family that loved math and science. Her father, John Lighton Synge, was an Irish mathematician. He studied the geometry of general relativity, which is part of Albert Einstein's famous theories. Her mother also studied mathematics for a while.
Cathleen's childhood was split between Ireland and Canada. Both her parents supported her interest in math and science. A family friend, Cecilia Krieger, who was also a woman mathematician, encouraged Cathleen to get her Ph.D. in math. Cathleen said her father helped her love math, but he joked that they might argue about it like the famous Bernoulli brothers, who were also mathematicians!
Schooling and Early Work
Cathleen Morawetz graduated from the University of Toronto in 1945. She then earned her master's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1946.
After that, she got a job at New York University. There, she helped edit an important book called Supersonic Flow and Shock Waves. She earned her Ph.D. in 1951 from New York University. Her Ph.D. work was about how spherical implosions (things collapsing inward) stay stable. Her advisor was Kurt Otto Friedrichs.
A Career in Mathematics
After getting her Ph.D., Cathleen Morawetz worked at MIT for a year. Then, she returned to the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. For five years, she focused only on research, without teaching classes.
She published many papers on different topics in applied mathematics. This included how sticky fluids are (viscosity), how compressible fluids behave, and how air flows at very high speeds (transonic flows).
Understanding Airflow and Shock Waves
Cathleen Morawetz studied what happens when air flows around an airplane wing. Even if the plane itself is flying slower than the speed of sound (subsonic), the air right around the wing can speed up to faster than sound (supersonic). When air moves at both supersonic and subsonic speeds, it creates something called shock waves. These shock waves can slow down the airplane.
She discovered that even specially designed airplane wings, meant to avoid these shocks, couldn't actually prevent them. Shocks would still appear from small changes, like a gust of wind or a tiny bump on the wing. This discovery was very important. It helped scientists understand how to design planes better. Later, experiments showed that the shock waves she predicted mathematically really do happen when air flows around a plane's wing.
Becoming a Professor and Beyond
In 1957, she became an assistant professor at Courant. She worked closely with other famous mathematicians like Peter Lax and Ralph S. Phillips. They published important papers about how solutions to the wave equation (a math equation describing waves) behave around obstacles.
She continued her own important work on wave equations and transonic flow. By 1965, she was promoted to a full professor. Her research then grew to include many other problems. Her first student to earn a Ph.D. under her guidance was Lesley Sibner in 1964. In the 1970s, she worked on scattering theory and nonlinear wave equations. She proved a key mathematical idea now known as the Morawetz Inequality. She passed away on August 8, 2017, in New York City.
Awards and Recognition
Cathleen Morawetz received many honors for her amazing work.
- In 1980, she won a Lester R. Ford Award.
- In 1981, she was the first woman to give the Gibbs Lecture for The American Mathematical Society.
- She received honorary degrees from several universities, including Princeton.
- She was chosen as a Noether Lecturer in 1983 and 1988.
- In 1984, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- The Association for Women in Science named her Outstanding Woman Scientist for 1993.
- In 1995, she became the second woman to be president of the American Mathematical Society.
- In 1998, she received the National Medal of Science. She was the first woman to get this medal for her work in mathematics!
- In 2004, she received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement.
- In 2006, she won the George David Birkhoff Prize in Applied Mathematics.
- In 2012, she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Morawetz was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She was the first woman to join the Applied Mathematics Section of that group.
Personal Life
Cathleen Morawetz lived in Greenwich Village in New York City with her husband, Herbert Morawetz. He was a polymer chemist, someone who studies large molecules. They had four children, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. One of their children, Nancy Morawetz, is a law professor at New York University School of Law.
When she was honored for successfully balancing her career and family, Cathleen Morawetz joked, "Maybe I became a mathematician because I was so crummy at housework." She also said her interests outside of math were her grandchildren and sailing.
