David Benney

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David Benney
Born(1930-04-08)8 April 1930
Wellington, New Zealand
Died9 October 2015(2015-10-09) (aged 85)
NationalityNew Zealand
Alma mater Victoria University College
University of Cambridge (BA)
MIT (PhD)
Known for Benney moment equations
Awards Guggenheim Fellowship (1964)
Scientific career
Institutions Canterbury University College
MIT
Thesis On the secondary motion induced by oscillations in a shear flow  (1959)
Doctoral advisor Chia-Chiao Lin
Doctoral students Alan C. Newell
Mark J. Ablowitz [1]

David John Benney (8 April 1930 – 9 October 2015) was a New Zealand applied mathematician, known for work on the nonlinear partial differential equations of fluid dynamics. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Education and early life

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 8 April 1930 to Cecil Henry (Matt) Benney and Phyllis Marjorie Jenkins, [5] Benney was educated at Wellington College. [6] He graduated BSc from Victoria University College in 1950, and MSc from the same institution in 1951. He then went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from where he graduated BA in the Mathematical Tripos in 1954. He was at Canterbury University College for two years as a lecturer, [2] before taking leave of absence in August 1957 to undertake doctoral studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating PhD in 1959. [6]

Career and research

Benney joined the mathematics faculty at MIT in 1960. He spent the rest of his career there, as a prolific researcher in fluid dynamics and supervisor of students, becoming emeritus professor. [2] He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964. [7]

Notes

  1. David Benney at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. 1 2 3 "David J. Benney, MIT Mathematics". Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  3. Petersen 1971.
  4. "Benney Equation, Wolfram MathWorld". Wolfram Research . Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  5. Petersen 1971, pp. 84.
  6. 1 2 Bryant, Peter J. (December 1990). "Professor David Benney". NZMS Newsletter. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
  7. "David J. Benney". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 12 July 2017.

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