Hans Wolfgang Liepmann
National Medal of Technology and Innovation
Defense
For his outstanding research contributions to the field of fluid mechanics and for his devotion for over 40 years to the education of the world's leaders in aeronautical engineering.
National Medal of Science
Engineering
For his invaluable contributions to the physical sciences and engineering and their impact on the national defense and for his important theoretical and experimental advances in the areas of laminar flow, instability and transition, turbulence, shock-wave boundary layer interaction, transonic flow, aerodynamic noise, magnetofluid dynamics, and the mechanics of liquid helium.
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Birth
July 3, 1914Age Awarded
79 (Technology)72 (Science)
Country of Birth
GermanyKey Contributions
Fundamental Research In Fluid DynamicsAwarded by
Bill Clinton (Technology)Ronald Wilson Reagan (Science)
Education
University of ZurichRWTH Aachen University
Areas of Impact
TransportationAffiliations
California Institute of TechnologyIt’s a good thing for the aerospace industry that Hans Liepmann overcame his father’s love of the humanities. Growing up in Berlin the young Liepmann’s great interest was physics, but his father, a noted physician, insisted on a classical education.
The younger Liepmann endured – and in later years his own students would benefit from that experience. After receiving a doctorate in physics from the University of Zurich in 1938, Liepmann came to the United States and taught and studied aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology
His aeronautics career was almost by accident, he told The Los Angeles Times in 1993. After receiving his Ph.D, a professor asked his plans. Tipsy from his beer, Liepmann replied, “aerodynamics,’’ though he knew little about it. That led to an invitation to come to Caltech.
In 1982 Liepmann was named director of school’s Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories, a post he held until 1985. Liepmann’s students would benefit greatly from his early years in Berlin: Remembering those teachers who he disdained as mere “drillmasters,’’ Liepmann fostered an approach heavy on research. Under his mentorship, Caltech’s students became leaders in academia and the aerospace industry.
By Robert Warren