Walter Noll facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Walter Noll
|
|
|---|---|
Professor Walter Noll
|
|
| Born | January 7, 1925 |
| Died | June 6, 2017 (aged 92) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
|
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Indiana University |
| Known for | Principle of material objectivity |
| Awards | American Mathematical Society Fellow (2012) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Applied mathematics, classical mechanics, thermodynamics, continuum mechanics |
| Institutions | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Thesis | On the Continuity of the Solid and Fluid States (1954) |
| Doctoral advisor | Clifford Truesdell |
Walter Noll (January 7, 1925 – June 6, 2017) was a very smart mathematician. He was also a Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University. He is best known for creating special mathematical tools. These tools helped understand how things move and interact. This field of study is called continuum mechanics.
About Walter Noll
Walter Noll was born in Berlin, Germany. He went to school in a suburb of Berlin. In 1954, he earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics. He got this degree from Indiana University. His teacher was a famous person named Clifford Truesdell.
His Ph.D. paper was called "On the Continuity of the Solid and Fluid States." This paper was published in a science journal. It also appeared in one of Truesdell's books.
Noll traveled a lot for his work. He was a visiting professor at many universities. These included places like Johns Hopkins University and the University of Oxford. He also taught in Germany, Israel, France, and Italy.
In 2012, he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. This is a special honor for mathematicians. Walter Noll passed away on June 6, 2017, when he was 92 years old.
Understanding Material Objectivity
In the study of continuum mechanics, Walter Noll introduced an important idea. He called it the principle of material objectivity. This idea helps us understand how materials behave.
Imagine you are watching something move. It could be a car or a ball. The way you describe its movement depends on where you are standing. But the car or ball itself doesn't change. Its own properties stay the same.
Noll's principle says that the rules for how a material acts inside itself should not change. It should not matter what outside viewpoint you use to describe it. Think of it like this: a rubber band stretches the same way. It stretches no matter if you are watching it from a moving train or standing still.
Today, this idea is often called the principle of material frame-indifference. The new name helps explain it even better.
Books by Walter Noll
Walter Noll wrote several important books during his career. These books shared his ideas and research. They helped other scientists learn about his work in mathematics and mechanics.
- Noll, Walter and Truesdell, Clifford (1965) The Non-Linear Field Theories of Mechanics.
- Noll, Walter; Coleman, B. D.; and Markovitz, H. (1966) Viscometric Flows of Non-Newtonian Fluids, Theory and Experiment.
- Noll, Walter (1974) Foundations of Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Selected Papers.
- Noll, Walter (1987) Finite-Dimensional Spaces: Algebra, Geometry, and Analysis, Vol. I.
- Noll, Walter (2004) Five Contributions to Natural Philosophy.
