National Academies Press: OpenBook

Memorial Tributes: Volume 16 (2012)

Chapter: NICHOLAS ROTT

« Previous: JAMES E. ROBERTS
Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×

image

Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×

NICHOLAS ROTT

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

Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×

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,

Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×

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 coprincipal 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.”

Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×
Page 268
Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×
Page 269
Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×
Page 270
Suggested Citation:"NICHOLAS ROTT." National Academy of Engineering. 2012. Memorial Tributes: Volume 16. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13338.
×
Page 271
Next: JOSEPH E. ROWE »
Memorial Tributes: Volume 16 Get This Book
×
Buy Hardback | $62.00 Buy Ebook | $49.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

This is the 16th Volume in the series Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and foreign associates. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and foreign associates, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.

Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and foreign associates, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!