Egon Orowan
Encyclopedia
Egon Orowan (August 2, 1902 — August 3, 1989) was a Hungarian
/British
/U.S.
physicist
and metallurgist.
district of Budapest
. His father, Berthold, was a mechanical engineer and factory manager, and his mother, Josze Spitzer Ságvári was the daughter of an impoverished land owner. In 1928, Orowan commenced his education at the Technical University of Berlin
in mechanical
and electrical engineering
but soon transferred to physics
, completing his doctorate on the fracture
of mica
in 1932. He seems to have experienced some difficulty in finding immediate employment and spent the next few years living with his mother and ruminating on his doctoral research.
In 1934, Orowan, roughly contemporarily with G. I. Taylor
and Michael Polanyi
, realized that the plastic deformation
of ductile materials could be explained in terms of the theory of dislocation
s developed by Vito Volterra
in 1905. Though the discovery was neglected until after World War II
, it was critical in developing the modern science of solid mechanics
.
After working for a short while on the extraction of krypton
from the air for the manufacture of light bulbs, in 1937 Orowan moved to the University of Birmingham
, UK where he worked on the theory of fatigue
collaborating with Rudolf Peierls
.
In 1939, he moved to the University of Cambridge
where William Lawrence Bragg
inspired his interest in x-ray diffraction. During World War II
, he worked on problems of munitions production, particularly that of plastic flow during rolling
. In 1944, he was central to the reappraisal of the causes of the tragic loss of many Liberty ship
s during the war, identifying the critical issues of the notch sensitivity of poor quality weld
s and the aggravating effects of the extreme low temperatures of the North Atlantic.
In 1950, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
where, in addition to continuing his metallurgical work, he developed his interests in geological
and glacialogical
fracture and in what he termed socionomy. In the latter study, Orowan developed the writings of the 14th century Tunisia
n historian Ibn Khaldun
to forecast a supposed eventual failure of market demand
similar to that claimed by Karl Marx
. His ideas found little acceptance among the majority of economist
s.
Throughout his life, he patent
ed many invention
s.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
/British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
/U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
and metallurgist.
Life
Orowan was born in the ÓbudaÓbuda
Óbuda was a historical city in Hungary. United with Buda and Pest in 1873 it now forms part of District III-Óbuda-Békásmegyer of Budapest. The name means Old Buda in Hungarian...
district of Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. His father, Berthold, was a mechanical engineer and factory manager, and his mother, Josze Spitzer Ságvári was the daughter of an impoverished land owner. In 1928, Orowan commenced his education at the Technical University of Berlin
Technical University of Berlin
The Technische Universität Berlin is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. Translating the name into English is discouraged by the university, however paraphrasing as Berlin Institute of Technology is recommended by the university if necessary .The TU Berlin was founded...
in mechanical
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
and electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
but soon transferred to physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, completing his doctorate on the fracture
Fracture
A fracture is the separation of an object or material into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress.The word fracture is often applied to bones of living creatures , or to crystals or crystalline materials, such as gemstones or metal...
of mica
Mica
The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition...
in 1932. He seems to have experienced some difficulty in finding immediate employment and spent the next few years living with his mother and ruminating on his doctoral research.
In 1934, Orowan, roughly contemporarily with G. I. Taylor
Geoffrey Ingram Taylor
Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM was a British physicist, mathematician and expert on fluid dynamics and wave theory. His biographer and one-time student, George Batchelor, described him as "one of the most notable scientists of this century".-Biography:Taylor was born in St. John's Wood, London...
and Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi
Michael Polanyi, FRS was a Hungarian–British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and the theory of knowledge...
, realized that the plastic deformation
Plasticity (physics)
In physics and materials science, plasticity describes the deformation of a material undergoing non-reversible changes of shape in response to applied forces. For example, a solid piece of metal being bent or pounded into a new shape displays plasticity as permanent changes occur within the...
of ductile materials could be explained in terms of the theory of dislocation
Dislocation
In materials science, a dislocation is a crystallographic defect, or irregularity, within a crystal structure. The presence of dislocations strongly influences many of the properties of materials...
s developed by Vito Volterra
Vito Volterra
Vito Volterra was an Italian mathematician and physicist, known for his contributions to mathematical biology and integral equations....
in 1905. Though the discovery was neglected until after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it was critical in developing the modern science of solid mechanics
Solid mechanics
Solid mechanics is the branch of mechanics, physics, and mathematics that concerns the behavior of solid matter under external actions . It is part of a broader study known as continuum mechanics. One of the most common practical applications of solid mechanics is the Euler-Bernoulli beam equation...
.
After working for a short while on the extraction of krypton
Krypton
Krypton is a chemical element with the symbol Kr and atomic number 36. It is a member of Group 18 and Period 4 elements. A colorless, odorless, tasteless noble gas, krypton occurs in trace amounts in the atmosphere, is isolated by fractionally distilling liquified air, and is often used with other...
from the air for the manufacture of light bulbs, in 1937 Orowan moved to the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
, UK where he worked on the theory of fatigue
Fatigue (material)
'In materials science, fatigue is the progressive and localized structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic loading. The nominal maximum stress values are less than the ultimate tensile stress limit, and may be below the yield stress limit of the material.Fatigue occurs...
collaborating with Rudolf Peierls
Rudolf Peierls
Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, CBE was a German-born British physicist. Rudolf Peierls had a major role in Britain's nuclear program, but he also had a role in many modern sciences...
.
In 1939, he moved to the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
where William Lawrence Bragg
William Lawrence Bragg
Sir William Lawrence Bragg CH OBE MC FRS was an Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer of the Bragg law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. He was knighted...
inspired his interest in x-ray diffraction. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he worked on problems of munitions production, particularly that of plastic flow during rolling
Rolling
Rolling is a combination of rotation and translation of that object with respect to a surface , such that the two are in contact with each other without sliding. This is achieved by a rotational speed at the cylinder or circle of contact which is equal to the translational speed...
. In 1944, he was central to the reappraisal of the causes of the tragic loss of many Liberty ship
Liberty ship
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
s during the war, identifying the critical issues of the notch sensitivity of poor quality weld
Welding
Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...
s and the aggravating effects of the extreme low temperatures of the North Atlantic.
In 1950, he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
where, in addition to continuing his metallurgical work, he developed his interests in geological
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
and glacialogical
Glaciology
Glaciology Glaciology Glaciology (from Middle French dialect (Franco-Provençal): glace, "ice"; or Latin: glacies, "frost, ice"; and Greek: λόγος, logos, "speech" lit...
fracture and in what he termed socionomy. In the latter study, Orowan developed the writings of the 14th century Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
n historian Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldun
Ibn Khaldūn or Ibn Khaldoun was an Arab Tunisian historiographer and historian who is often viewed as one of the forerunners of modern historiography, sociology and economics...
to forecast a supposed eventual failure of market demand
Supply and demand
Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers will equal the quantity supplied by producers , resulting in an...
similar to that claimed by Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. His ideas found little acceptance among the majority of economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
s.
Throughout his life, he patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed many invention
Invention
An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...
s.
Honours
- Fellow of the Royal SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, (1947) - Member of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, (1951) - Member of the National Academy of SciencesUnited States National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
, (1969); - Bingham MedalBingham MedalThe Bingham Medal is an annual award for outstanding contributions to the field of rheology. It was instituted in 1948 by the Society of Rheology, commemorating Eugene C. Bingham .-List of Award Winners:*1948 Melvin Mooney*1949 Henry Eyring...
of the American Society of Rheology, (1959); - Gauss Medal of the Braunschweiger Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, (1968);
- Vincent Bendix Gold Medal of the American Society for Engineering EducationAmerican Society for Engineering EducationThe American Society for Engineering Education is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education....
, (1971); - Paul Bergse Medal of the Danish Metallurgical Society, (1973);
- The Acta Metallurgica Gold Medal, (1985).
External links
- Egon Orowan. 1901—1989. A Biographical Memoir by F.R.N. Nabarro and A. S. Argon. 1996. National Academies Press. Washington D.C.
- Kovács László. Orován Egon szilárdtestfizikus születésének centenáriumán. Magyar Tudomány, 2002/3 372.