Walter Noll (January 7, 1925 June 6, 2017) was a mathematician, and Professor Emeritus at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

. He is best known for developing mathematical tools of

classical mechanics Classical mechanics is a Theoretical physics, physical theory describing the motion of objects such as projectiles, parts of Machine (mechanical), machinery, spacecraft, planets, stars, and galaxies. The development of classical mechanics inv ...

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, Work (thermodynamics), work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed b ...

, and

continuum mechanics Continuum mechanics is a branch of mechanics that deals with the deformation of and transmission of forces through materials modeled as a ''continuous medium'' (also called a ''continuum'') rather than as discrete particles. Continuum mec ...

Biography

Born in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Weimar Germany, Noll had his school education in a suburb of Berlin. In 1954, Noll earned a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...

in 1954 under

Clifford Truesdell Clifford Ambrose Truesdell III (February 18, 1919 – January 14, 2000) was an American mathematician, natural philosopher, and historian of science. Life Truesdell was born in Los Angeles, California. After high school, he spent two years in Eur ...

. His thesis "On the Continuity of the Solid and Fluid States" was published both in '' Journal of Rational Mechanics and Analysis'' and in one of Truesdell's books. Noll thanks Jerald Ericksen for his critical input to the thesis. Noll has served as a visiting professor at the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

, the

University of Karlsruhe The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; ) is both a German public university, public research university in Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, and a research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 when the University of Ka ...

, the Israel Institute of Technology, the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine in Nancy, the University of Pisa, the

University of Pavia The University of Pavia (, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; ) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest un ...

, and the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. In 2012 he became a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

. Noll died on June 6, 2017, at the age of 92.

Principle of material objectivity

, Noll introduced the so-called principle of material objectivity, which states that the constitutive laws governing the internal conditions of a physical system and the interactions between its parts should not depend on whatever external

frame of reference In physics and astronomy, a frame of reference (or reference frame) is an abstract coordinate system, whose origin (mathematics), origin, orientation (geometry), orientation, and scale (geometry), scale have been specified in physical space. It ...

is used to describe them. "Principle of material objectivity" is now an obsolete term that has been replaced by principle of material frame-indifference.Miroslav Šilhavý, ''The Mechanics and Thermodynamics of Continuous Media'', Springer, 1997
"The Principle of Material Frame Indifference"

Books

*Noll, Walter and Truesdell, Clifford (1965) ''The Non-Linear Field Theories of Mechanics''. Springer-Verlag, New York. . *Noll, Walter; Coleman, B. D.; and Markovitz, H. (1966) ''Viscometric Flows of Non-Newtonian Fluids, Theory and Experiment''. Springer-Verlag, New York. ASIN B0006BN90G. *Noll, Walter (1974) ''Foundations of Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Selected Papers''. Springer-Verlag, New York. . *Noll, Walter (1987) ''Finite-Dimensional Spaces: Algebra, Geometry, and Analysis, Volume I''. Kluwer Academic Publishers. . A corrected version (2006) is published on Professor Noll's website. *Noll, Walter (2004) ''Five Contributions to Natural Philosophy''. Published on Professor Noll's website

References

External links

*
Professor Noll's Carnegie Mellon home page

Professor Noll's websiteObituary: Walter Noll, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 11, 2017
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noll, Walter 2017 deaths 1925 births 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Carnegie Mellon University faculty Fellows of the American Mathematical Society German emigrants to the United States Indiana University Bloomington alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Academic staff of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Mathematicians from Berlin Academic staff of the University of Pavia Academic staff of the University of Pisa