FINZI

ITALY (see also List of Individuals)

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12.2.1899 Inzino di Gardone/I - 10.9.1974 Milano/I

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Bruno Finzi graduated as an industrial engineer in 1920 from Politecnico di Milano and continued with studies in mathematics at Pavia University, where he was a student of Umberto Cisotti (1882-1946). After having submitted there a PhD thesis, he moved back to Milan in 1922 as an assistant in rational mechanics. In 1931, he was there appointed professor of rational mechanics. After Cisotti had passed away, Finzi was appointed to his rational mechanics chair and put considerable efforts in the improvement of the Institute of Mathematics, and the Institute of Aerospace Engineering. Finzi was elected rector of the Politecnico from 1967 to 1969, the difficult term with the 1968 student revolutions. Finzi was a Member of Accademia dei Lincei and served as its secretary in 1968; he was awarded the Premio Kramer from Istituto Lombardo in 1933. He also was the founder and first president from 1965 to 1969 of Associazione Italiana di Meccanica Teorica ed Applicativa AIMETA.

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During Finzi's stay with Cisotti, he was attracted by problems relating to both inviscid and viscous fluid flows. From 1925 he was interested in problems with singularities and he presented limitations to the Kutta-Zhukovsky theorem, as previously advanced by Wilhelm Kutta (1867-1944) and Nikolai Egorovich Zhukovsky (1847-1921). In the 1930s Finzi considered mainly two problems, one relating to Einstein's relativity theory, whereas the second involved continuum mechanics. In the latter topic, he formulated theorems for the wave group velocity. Also, he advanced the so called "Finzi tensor". Other works were on the variational principle in continuum mechanics, or on the intrinsic equations governing continuous systems in mechanics. Finzi was the author of a number of successful books, among which are those of 1935 on resistance in fluid mechanics, and the 1953 book in aerodynamics as a basic approach to related problems.

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_{Anonymous (1967). Bruno Finzi. Missili 9: 169. P}

_{Finzi, B., Bozza, G. (1935). Resistenza idro ed aerodinamica. Principato: Milano. Finzi, B. (1953). Lezioni di aerodinamica. Tamburini: Milano.}

_{Finzi, B. (1971). Selecta. Tamburini: Milano.}

_{Majocchi, R. (1997). Finzi, Bruno. Dizionario biografico degli italiani 48: 73-75. Treccani: Roma. Pastori, M. (1975). Bruno Finzi. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Celebrazioni Lincee 92: 1-12. P Somigliano, C., Finzi, B. (1928). Il contributo italiano al progresso della meccanica razionale e della fisica matematica negli ultimi anni. Roma.}