Paco Axel Lagerstrom | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 24, 1914 |
| Died | February 16, 1989 (1989-02-17) (aged 74)[1] |
| Alma mater | Stockholm University Princeton University |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Asymptotic expansion Fluid mechanics |
| Institutions | Caltech |
| Thesis | Measure and Integral in Partially Ordered Spaces (1942) |
| Doctoral advisor | Salomon Bochner[2] |
| Doctoral students | Julian Cole Athanassios S. Fokas Milton Van Dyke Saul Kaplun Stephen Childress |
Paco Axel Lagerstrom (February 24, 1914 – February 16, 1989) was a Swedish-American applied mathematician and aeronautical engineer. He was trained formally in mathematics, but worked for much of his career in aeronautical applications. He was known for work in applying the method ofasymptotic expansion to fluid mechanics problems.[3] Several of his works have become classics, including "Matched Asymptotic Expansions: Ideas And Techniques".[4]
He was born on February 24, 1914, inOskarshamn,Sweden.
Lagerstrom earned bachelor's and master's degrees, in 1935 and 1939 respectively, at theStockholm University.[1] He then came to America as a graduate student atPrinceton University, earning a PhD in 1942 in mathematics underSalomon Bochner[2] with a dissertation entitled "Measure and Integral in Partially Ordered Spaces". During this time, Lagerstrom was also a mathematics instructor.
He left Princeton in 1944 to work briefly atBell Aircraft in Niagara Falls, New York until 1945,[1] after which he worked for a similarly brief period atDouglas Aircraft in Santa Monica.[5] While he had already published significant results in pure mathematics,[6][7] he was, by this time, firmly interested in its applications to fluid dynamic and aerodynamic problems. In 1946, Lagerstrom was recruited byHans Liepmann to theGuggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory atCaltech.[5] He was later promoted to Professor of Aeronautics in 1952 and Professor of Applied Mathematics in 1967,[5] having departed only briefly to theUniversity of Paris in 1960–1961 as visiting professor on aGuggenheim Fellowship.[1]
He died on February 16, 1989.[8]
His book "Laminar flow theory", initially published in 1964 in the Theory of Laminar flows, edited by F.K.Moore, is still considered as the standard textbook for fluid mechanics.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)"Problems in the theory of viscous compressible fluids"(PDF).