Paul Nemenyi

Paul Nemenyi, in a photo he sent to Theodore von Kármán, asking about a vacancy at Caltech

Paul Felix Nemenyi (June 5, 1895, Rijeka, Austria-Hungary – March 1, 1952, Washington DC, USA) was a Jewish Hungarian mathematician and physicist specializing in continuum mechanics. Nemenyi's mathematical research encompassed: continuum mechanics, fluid dynamics, hydrostatics, statistical mechanics, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and stress mechanics. Nemenyi was known for using what he called the inverse or semi-inverse approach, which applied vector field analysis, to obtain numerous exact solutions of the nonlinear equations of gas dynamics, many of them representing rotational flows of nonuniform total energy. In continuum mechanics, "Nemenyi's theorem" proves that, given any net of isothermal curves, there exists a five parameter family of plane stress systems for which these curves are stress trajectories. He was the father of the statistician Peter Nemenyi and possibly the father of former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer.

Biography

Nemenyi was born to a Hungarian Jewish family. His family's art collection included works by Klimt, Kandinsky and Matisse. At the age of 17, Nemenyi won the Hungarian national mathematics competition.^[1] Nemenyi obtained his doctorate in mathematics in Berlin in 1922 and lectured on fluid dynamics at the Technical University of Berlin.^[2] In the early 1930s, he published a textbook on mathematical mechanics that became required reading in German universities. Stripped of his position when the Nazis came to power, he also had to leave Hungary where anti-Semitic laws had been enacted, and found work for a time in Copenhagen.

He arrived in the USA at the outbreak of World War II. He briefly held a number of teaching positions in succession and took part in hydraulic research at the State University of Iowa.^[3] In 1941 he was appointed instructor at the University of Colorado, and in 1944 at the State College of Washington.^[4]

In Germany, Nemenyi belonged to a Socialist party called the ITSK, which believed that truth could be arrived at through neo-Kantian Socratic principles. He was an animal-rights supporter, who was a strict vegan and refused to wear anything made of wool.^[5] In 1930, Nemenyi entrusted his 3 year old first son, Peter Nemenyi, to be looked after by the socialist vegetarian community, visiting him once a year.^[6]

Theodore von Kármán wrote of Nemenyi: “When he came to this country, he went to scientific meetings in an open shirt without a tie and was very much disappointed as I advised him to dress as anyone else. He told me that he thought this was a country of freedom, and the man is only judged according to his internal values and not his external appearance.”^[7]

In 1947 Nemenyi was appointed a physicist with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Maryland.^[8] He was head of the Theoretical Mechanics Section at the laboratory and one of the country's principal authorities on elasticity and fluid dynamics. Nemenyi was best known for using what he called the inverse or semi-inverse approach to obtain numerous exact solutions of the nonlinear equations of gas dynamics, many of them representing rotational flows of nonuniform total energy (see article by Nemenyi and Prim in Selected List of Publications below, which is Nemenyi's most highly cited work, though it has had no citations since 1985. Exact solutions may have less practical importance since the widespread availability of computers.).

Nemenyi's scientific knowledge extended well beyond the subjects of his researches. He has been described as having “extreme[ly] versatile interests and erudition”.^[9] Nemenyi's interest and ability encompassed several nonscientific fields. He collected children's art and sometimes lectured upon it. In 1951, he published a critique of the entire Encyclopædia Britannica, and suggested improvements for such diverse sections as psychology and psychoanalysis.^[10]

Paul Nemenyi died on March 1, 1952, at the age of 56. He was survived by a son, Peter Nemenyi, then a student of mathematics at Princeton University.^[11]

Bobby Fischer's Father?

In 2002 Nemenyi was identified as the probable biological father of world chess champion Bobby Fischer, not the man named on Fischer's birth certificate.^[12][13] Additional details on their relationship were reported in 2009.^[14]

Select list of publications

• Adolf Ludin and Paul Nemenyi, Die nordischen Wasserkräfte: Ausbau und wirtschaftliche Ausnutzung. Berlin: Julius Springer, 1930.
• Paul Nemenyi, Wasserbauliche Strömungslehre. Barth Verlag, 1933.
• Paul Nemenyi and Bennie N. Netser, ‘Relation of the Statistical Theory of Turbulence to Hydraulics’, Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers 66 (1940), pp. 967–979.
• Paul Nemenyi and R. Prim. Some geometric properties of plane gas flow. JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS Volume: 27 Issue: 2 Pages: 130-135 Published: 1948. Cited 14 times according to Science Citation Index. Last cited 1985.
• Paul Nemenyi, ‘The Main Concepts and Ideas of Fluid Dynamics in their Historical Development’, Archive for History of Exact Sciences 2 (1962), pp. 52–86. Posthumous publication, edited by Clifford Truesdell.

Obituaries

• Science, 29 August 1952, Vol. 116. no. 3009, pp. 215 – 216 [1]
• Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 1953, 43, pp. 62–63 [Clifford Truesdell wrote this obituary and the Science obituary, and they are virtually identical.]

(Information not incorporated into article)

References