KÁRMÁN, Tódor

His father was a professor of pedagogy and the founder of the so-called training grammar school at the University of Budapest, which his son also attended. After that K. studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Budapest. When he gained the title of mechanical engineer, he served for a year in the artillery and was later an assistant at the Institute of the Technical University. With the help of the scholarship he moved to Göttingen, where he and Ludwig Prandtl researched the field of mechanics of liquids and gases. He initially planned to stay two years, but the research was prolonged so he stayed for six years. In 1911 he published the so-called Karman vortex street for the first time.
In 1912 the Mining Academy in Banská Štiavnica appointed him a professor. Since there was a time limit of his research, K. accepted a position at the Technical University in Aachen. In the First World War K. served as first lieutenant in the squadron in Fischamend in Vienna, where he was researching the wind channel. After the war he returned to Budapest. K. was in charge of higher education reform at the ministry of education, and later became head of the State Commissariat of Education. After the fall of the government in 1919 he had to leave as well.
K. moved to Aachen, where he accepted a position as director of the Aeronautical Institute and stayed there until 1930. During the years spent in Aachen, K. developed his theory of turbulence. In 1926 he travelled to the United States, accepting the directorship of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology but was still active in the Institute in Aachen. In 1933 K. moved to Pasadena. In his further research he was concerned with aeronautics and he developed the theory of constructing the first supersonic aircraft, he participated in first attempts to manufacture rocket motors and he built the first prototypes of ballistic missiles. K. received numerous honorary doctorates and high honors. In 1962 he visited his homeland. Crater on Moon is named in his honor.