Demetrios Magiros

Demetrios G. Magiros (Δημήτριος Γ. Μαγείρος, 19 December 1912, Euboea, Greece – 19 January 1982, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a Greek-American mathematician, specializing in the stability of dynamical systems.

Education and career

Magiros did his undergraduate and graduate study at the University of Athens (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), where he received his doctorate in pure mathematics in 1940. At the National Technical University of Athens he was appointed a lecturer in mechanics and geodesy and subsequently was promoted to professor of mathematics. During WW II he published no papers but in 1946 he published three papers on the catenary. In 1949 he went to the USA. There he studied applied mathematics at Brown University, at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After holding research positions at Columbia University's IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Laboratory, the Republic Aviation Corporation, and at the Courant Institute, he was appointed professor of mathematics and mechanics at Hofstra University. When he was a professor at Hofstra, he was also a consultant for the General Electric Company's Missile and Space Vehicle Department at the Valley Forge Technology Center. In 1960 he resigned from Hofstra University to work full-time as a researcher at General Electric's Missile and Space Vehicle Department. He worked for General Electric Aerospace for the remainder of his career.

During his career Magiros published 54 papers, 2 of them in the ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences''. In 2012 a book containing a selection of 43 of his papers was published with Spyros G. Tzafestas as editor. The book is organized into three parts: mathematics applied to engineering modelling and social issues (with 11 papers), nonlinear mechanics (with 18 papers), and dynamic systems analysis (with 12 papers), plus an appendix with 2 papers published in Soviet mathematical journals. The section on nonlinear mechanics contains 8 papers on celestial and orbital mechanics. The section on dynamical systems analysis contains 6 papers on stability analysis, 4 on precessional phenomena, and 2 on separatrices of dynamical systems. Professor Spyros Tzafestas (born 1939) was a leading expert on control theory and robotics.

Selected publications

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* (reprinted from 1966 original in ''Proceedings of the Athens Academy of Sciences'' — George H. Reehl (1923–2012) was an electrical engineer employed by General Electric. )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Magiros, Demetrios
Greek emigrants to the United States
20th-century Greek mathematicians
Applied mathematicians
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni
Academic staff of the National Technical University of Athens
Hofstra University faculty
General Electric employees
People from Euboea (regional unit)
1912 births
1982 deaths