BELTRAMI

ITALY (see also List of Individuals)

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16.11.1835 Cremona/ I - 18.2.1900 Roma/I

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Eugenio Beltrami graduated from Pavia University where Francesco Brioschi (1824-1897) was his mentor. He was appointed associate professor of analysis at University of Bologna in 1862 and moved one year later as professor of geodesy to Pisa University. In 1866 he was appointed professor of mechanics at University of Bologna, from where he moved first to Rome University in 1873 and finally in 1876 back to the University of Pavia as a professor of mathematical physics. Beltrami was an outstanding mathematician of the 19th century.

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Beltrami presented in 1871 a long paper on the foundations of hydrodynamics, where he investigated the kinematics and dynamics of fluid flow. He was able to generalize results previously obtained by Augustin Louis Cauchy (1789-1857), Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) and William Thomson (1824-1907) on vortex flow. In a second paper he considered extensively the implications of the potential flow theory. Beltrami flow refers to a current of which the velocity and the vorticity vectors are parallel throughout the flow field. For a two-dimensional Beltrami flow, the vorticity does not vary along the streamlines, therefore. Although these important findings, Beltrami was mainly working in differential geometry and electrodynamics. He was a president of the Royal Academy of Lincei, a Member of the Bologna, the Neapolitan and the Modena Academies of Sciences, among many other European institutions, and a Cavalier of Savoy.

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_{Beltrami, E. (1871). Sui principii fondamentali dell'idrodinamica razionale. Memorie}

_{dell'Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna Serie 3 1: 431-476; 2: 381-437;}

_{3: 349-407; 4: 443-484.}

_{Beltrami, E. (1889). Considerazioni idrodinamiche. Rendiconti Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Serie 2 22: 121-130.}

_{Celoria, G. (1900). Eugenio Beltrami: Cenni commemorative. Rendiconti Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Serie 2 33: 241-245.}

_{Lacaita, C.G., Silvestri, A. (2000). Eugenio Beltrami. Francesco Brioschi e il suo tempo. Franco Angeli: Milano. P}

_{Poggendorff, J.C. (1898). Beltrami, Eugenio. Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch}

_{3: 104-105; 4: 94-95; 6: 169. Barth: Leipzig, with bibliography.}

_{Virgopia, N. (1966). Beltrami, Eugenio. Dizionario biografico degli Italiani: 64-68.}

_{Enciclopedia Italiana: Roma. http://www.dm.unito.it/sism/m_italiani/biografie/tricomi/beltrami.html P}