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N IC H OLA S RO T T
1917–2006
Elected in 1993
“For teaching and research leading to fundamental advances in
aerodynamics, acoustics, and fluid mechanics.”
BY BRIAN J. CANTWELL AND GEORGE S. SPRINGER
NICHOLAS ROTT, professor emeritus of fluid dynamics
at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich,
whose teaching and research led to fundamental advances in
aerodynamics, acoustics, and fluid mechanics, died on August
10, 2006, at the age of 88.
He was elected to membership in the National Academy of
Engineering in 1993.
Nicholas Rott was born on October 6, 1917, in Budapest,
Hungary. He pursued his studies in aeronautical engineering,
which became the foundation of his life’s work, at the Zurich
Institute of Technology. It was also in Switzerland that he
met his wife, Rosanna. By 1951, Nicholas and his family,
which included two children, immigrated to the United
States. Nicholas taught at Cornell University, the first of three
teaching positions. In 1959 he began teaching at the University
of California at Los Angeles, and in 1967 he returned to
Switzerland to become head of the Department of Aeronautical
Engineering at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. He
retired in 1983 as professor of fluid dynamics from the Federal
Institute of Technology. Nicholas and Rosanna moved to Palo
Alto, California, in 1984 to be close to their children, Dainuri
Rott and Katherine P. Roselli. After retirement he became a
consulting professor in the Department of Aeronautics and
269
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270 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Astronautics at Stanford University, where he continued his
research. At Stanford he collaborated with Brian Cantwell
in theoretical modeling of vortex pairs and vortex rings and
helped advise students in fluid mechanics and experimental
methods.
As his National Academy of Engineering biography reads:
“Rott and his colleagues in Zurich developed a theoretical
foundation for thermoacoustics, which has applications in
refrigeration and ventilation, especially in space capsules,
where thermo-oscillation is used to replace the natural
convection that occurs in gravity environments.”
Nicholas was also interested in nonlinear dynamics. Starting
with mathematical theory, he used a double pendulum to
illustrate this theory and, in the process, created a unique
system that demonstrates regular and chaotic motion. His
pendulum, developed as an exhibit in conjunction with Ned
Kahn on the staff of the Exploratorium in San Francisco, is on
display at the Exploratorium. For many years it has been the
first exhibit that greets visitors when they enter the museum.
With respect to Prandtl’s formulation of boundary layer
equations in 1904, Nicholas made “fundamental contributions
to the solution of many boundary layer problems, such
as laminar boundary layer calculations on yawed wings,
compressible, time-dependent and acoustic boundary layers
as well as boundary layers in rotating flows.”
Nicholas wrote a landmark paper, published in 1956, in
the first volume of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. In this paper
Nicholas proposed to parameterize vortex sheet spirals by
their circulation and showed that this led to a particularly
useful description of their motion. An analogous theory was
given by Birkhoff in 1962 for the case of infinite vortex sheets.
The resulting Birkhoff-Rott equation has influenced research
to the present and can be used to provide a unified view of
various approximations for the calculation of vortex sheet
motion.
Nicholas collaborated with Harvey Lam of Princeton
University on the theory of time-dependent boundary
layers. Their results, in the form of the Lam-Rott solutions,
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N IC H OLA S RO T T 271
have recently become a crucial ingredient in the analysis of
boundary layer receptivity.
His daughter wrote:
Nicholas played the cello and had a lifelong love
for classical music. One of his grandsons became co-
principal cellist at the State Opera Orchestra of Hanover,
Germany.
He translated the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke as he
felt the official translations did not do his favorite poet
justice. He loved history and gave his children a world
context for unfolding news.
In his later years Nicholas took to riding a motorized
tricycle around town, appreciating the mobility it gave
him when he could no longer drive. Dainuri created
a foundation in his father’s name to promote hybrid
tricycles for elders called Good Life Trikes, which has
now developed into Good Life Mobility.
Nicholas Rott is survived by his daughter, Kathy Roselli
of Ashland, Oregon; a son, Dainuri Rott of Palo Alto; five
grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. He is fondly
remembered by his family as “The Popster.”
