Background
Kennard, Earle Hesse was born on August 2, 1885 in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Son of Edwin Orson and Flora (Hesse) Kennard.
physicist university professor
Kennard, Earle Hesse was born on August 2, 1885 in Columbus, Ohio, United States. Son of Edwin Orson and Flora (Hesse) Kennard.
Bachelor of Arts, Pomona College, 1907. Rhodes scholar from California, University of Oxford, 1908-1911, Bachelor of Science, 1911. Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell, 1913.
During a 1926 sabbatical spent at the University of Göttingen, he learned the newly developing quantum mechanics of Werner Heisenberg and Pascual Jordan. With this knowledge, he derived the first rigorous form of the uncertainty principle and fully solved several simple quantum mechanics problems for the first time. In 1926, he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell, which he remained until 1946.
In 1941, still at Cornell, he became a part-time consultant at the David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB), the United States Navy modelling facility.
In the period 1946-1949 he was the head of the hydromechanics laboratory, and from 1950 until 1957 he was head of the structural mechanics laboratory. From 1957 until his retirement in 1960 he was a general scientific consultant to the commanding officer of the DTMB. Also after his retirement he continued to work for the DTMB under contract.
Much of his research for the Navy focussed on hydrodynamics and elasticity, in particular on the theory of potential flow, the physics of underwater explosions and structural vibrations. "Earle H. Kennard Dies, Directed Naval Laboratories".
Physics Today 21 (8): 93.
1968. doi:10.1063/1.3035132.
Fellow American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science. Member Phi Beta Kappa, Gamma Alpha.
Married Margaret.; children: Jarman George, Anne Dance, Paul Hesse.
