Fritz Ursell

Fritz Joseph Ursell FRS[4] (28 April 1923 – 11 May 2012) was a British mathematician noted for his contributions to fluid mechanics, especially in the area of wave-structure interactions.[6] He held the Beyer Chair of Applied Mathematics at the University of Manchester from 1961 to 1990,[7] was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1972 and retired in 1990.[5]

Fritz J. Ursell
Born(1923-04-28)28 April 1923[1]
Düsseldorf, Germany
Died11 May 2012(2012-05-11) (aged 89)[2][3]
Manchester, UK
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge
Known forUrsell number
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society[4] (1972)
Georg Weinblum Lectureship (1985–1986)
IMA Gold Medal (1994)
Scientific career
FieldsApplied mathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Manchester
University of Cambridge
Doctoral studentsJ. N. Newman
E. O. Tuck
David Evans[5]

Education

Ursell came to England as a Jewish[8] refugee in 1937 from Germany.[1][9] From 1941 to 1943 he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with a bachelor degree in mathematics.

Career

At the end of 1943 Ursell joined the Admiralty as a part of a team—headed by George Deacon (not John Deacon) —whose task was to formulate rules for forecasting waves for the allied landings in Japan. Their findings have become the basis of modern wave-forecasting. Ursell stayed in the Admiralty until 1947. In 1947 he was appointed to a post-doctoral fellowship in applied mathematics at Manchester University without a doctorate. In 1950 he returned to Cambridge as lecturer. There he met G. I. Taylor. In 1957 he spent a year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having been invited by Arthur Ippen. In 1961 Ursell moved back to Manchester.[10]

In 1994 Ursell was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in recognition of his "outstanding contributions to mathematics and its applications over a period of years".[11]

Scientific work

In 1957 he published together with Clive R. Chester and Bernard Friedman a classic paper that introduced a method to find asymptotic expansions for contour integrals with coalescing saddle points.[12] The method is now called method of Chester–Friedman–Ursell.

Personal life

Fritz Ursell was married to Katharina Renate Zander in 1959. They had two daughters.[1] Susie and Ruth, Susie is married and has two children.[3] Following his death on 11 May, in hospital, Ursell's funeral took place on 15 May 2012 at Manchester Crematorium.[2]

References
  1. Ursell (1994, p. 975)
  2. J J O'Connor and E F Robertson (March 2014). "Fritz Joseph Ursell". MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. Retrieved 4 June 2021.
  3. "Obituary – Fritz Joseph Ursell". The Times. 15 May 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  4. Abrahams, I. D.; Martin, P. A. (2013). "Fritz Joseph Ursell. 28 April 1923 -- 11 May 2012". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 59: 407–421. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2013.0005. S2CID 72445938.
  5. Fritz Ursell at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. Ursell (1994)
  7. Abrahams, I. D.; Martin, P. A.; Norris, A. N. (2001). "G.R. Wickham: An appreciation". Wave Motion. 33 (1): 1–6. Bibcode:2001WaMot..33....1A. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.24.9227. doi:10.1016/S0165-2125(00)00059-7. This contains also information on Fritz Ursell and the Beyer Chair.
  8. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Fritz Joseph Ursell", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
  9. Martin, P.A.; Wickham, G.R. (1992). Wave Asymptotics: The Proceedings of the Meeting to Mark the Retirement of Professor Fritz Ursell from the Beyer Chair of Applied Mathematics in the University of Manchester. Cambridge University Press. p. xi. ISBN 978-0-521-41414-2.
  10. Ursell, Fritz (1994). Ship Hydrodynamics, Water Waves, and Asymptotics: Collected Papers of F. Ursell, 1946–1992. Advanced Series on Fluid Mechanics. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-1950-5. In two volumes, 1004 pp.
  11. "IMA Gold Medal". Retrieved 16 May 2018. Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
  12. Chester, Clive R.; Friedman, Bernard; Ursell, Fritz (1957). "An extension of the method of steepest descents". Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Cambridge University Press. 53 (3): 599–611. Bibcode:1957PCPS...53..599C. doi:10.1017/S0305004100032655. S2CID 122589439.
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