7/27/2019 The Finite-element Method Part I R. L. Courant
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journal articles; (c) IEEE journal tion of the column by
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Torsion Problem for Multiply-Connected Domains," from [1].IEEE
AntennasandPropagationMagazine, 4 N 2 A 200711
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ture of electrical engineering, as recorded in the INSPEC
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every four years since1969, although it has slowed somewhat since
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Richard L. CourantRichard (Figure 3) wa s the eldest child of
Siegmund and
Martha Courant. When Richard was nine, his family moved
toBreslau. Richard attended school there, entering the
K~3nig-Wilhelm Gymnasium. With little previous education,
Richardstruggled at school at first, even being "less than
satisfactory" atarithmetic. When Richard was fourteen years old, he
began to tutorto make enough money to support himself. Soon after
this, a trag-edy struck the family when Jakob, Richard's uncle, in
severe busi-ness difficulties, committed suicide; shortly after,
Siegmund wasdeclared bankrupt. Th e following tw o years must have
been timesof extreme difficulty for Richard, attending school and
still sup-porting himself tutoring.
Courant ha d studied at Breslau with two fellow students,
OttoToeplitz and Ernst Hellinger. These two, several years older
thanCourant and further on with their education, were by this
stagestudying at G6ttingen. They wrote to Courant, telling him
howexciting it was there, particularly because of Hilbert. In the
springof 1907, Courant left Breslau, spent a semester at Zurich,
and thenbegan his studies at G6ttingen on November 1, 1907.
R. L. Courant received his doctorate from the University
ofGdttingen in 1910 under David Hilbert. For the next four years,
hetaught mathematics at G6ttingen. Then at age 26, his teaching
andresearch were interrupted by the onset of World War I. A few
yearsafter the war, Courant returned to G6ttingen, where he founded
anddirected (from 1922 to 1933) the University's Mathematics
Insti-tute. Th e Institute wa s just a name and a group of people
until1927, when a building wa s constructed. While at the
institute, hewrote a two-volume treatise with D. Hilbert, Methoden
der mathe-matischen Physik (1924), later translated into English as
Methodsof Mathematical Physics, a work that furthered the evolution
ofquantum mechanics.
Courant was expelled from G6ttingen when the Nazis cameto power
in 1933. On January 30, 1933, Hitler came to power, andin March,
Courant left Gdttingen for his spring holiday in Arosa
inSwitzerland. On May 5, Courant received an official letter
tellinghim he was on forced leave. Weyl was made director of the
Mathe-matics Institute, and he made every effort to have Courant
back.Meanwhile, attempts were made to offer Courant posts
elsewhere.Invited to Cambridge in England fo r a one-year visit, he
applied forleave (slightly strange that he had to do so, sincc he
was already onforced leave). His forced leave wa s changed to
ordinary leave, andCourant left for England, going to Ne w York
University the fol-lowing year.
The first few months in New York were difficult. He waspoorly
paid, there were no mathematicians of quality on the staff,and the
students he taught he found very badly prepared. In 1936,he was
offered a professorship at New York University, and giventhe task
of building a graduate center. Again, he ha d a mostly suc-cessful
collaboration with his students. In 1940-41, he worked on anew book
with Herbert Robbins, a young topologist from Harvard.This book wa
s "lat is Mathematics? and it records Courant'sviews of
mathematics.
Figure 3. Richard L. Courant,, January 8, 1888,
Lublinitz,Prussia, Germany (now Lubliniec, Poland) - January 27,
1972,New Rochelle, New York, USA.Courant suffered a stroke on
November 19, 1971, and wastaken to a hospital in New Rochelle,
where he died two months
later.
References1. R. L. Courant, "Variational Methods for the
Solution of Prob-lems of Equilibrium and Vibration," Bulletin of
the AmericanMathematicalSociety, 49, 1943, pp. 1-23.2. D. B.
Davidson, "General Chair's Report on the 8th Interna-tional
Workshop on Finite Elements fo r Microwave
Engineering,Stellenbosch, South Africa, May 2006," IEEE Antennas
andPropagationMagazine, 48, 4, August 2006, pp. 1 10- 114.3. J. L.
Synge, The Hypercircle in Mathematical Physics, Cam-bridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1957.4. R. J. Duffin, "Distributed and
Lumped Networks," Journal ofMathematicsand Mechanics, 8, 1959, pp.
793-826.5. P. Silvester, "Finite-Element Solution of
HomogeneousWaveguide Problems," Alta Frequenza, 38, 1969, pp.
313-317.6. P. L. Arlett, A. K. Bahrani, and 0. C. Zienkiewicz,
"Applicationof Finite Elements to the Solution of Helmholtz's
Equation," Pro-ceedings of the Institution of Electrical Engineers,
115, 1968, pp.1762-1766.7. Z. J. Cendes and P. Silvester,
"Numerical Solution of DielectricLoaded Waveguides. I -
Finite-Element Analysis," IEEE Transac-tions on Microwave Theory
and Techniques, MITT-1 9, 1971, pp.504-509. '10'
1IEEE AntennasandPropagationMagazine, 4 N 2 A
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