Gustav De Vries

Personal

Vocation

Notable

Dutch mathematician and physicist He was the son of Rubertus Jan de Vries (26 August 1821, Amsterdam - 21 September 1909, Groningen) and Henriette Auguste Frantzen (10 May 1826, Kirschseiffen - 14 February 1886, Kampen), who married 15 May 1857 in Kirschseiffen, Germany. De Vries is best known for Korteweg-De Vries equation, describing the erratic behaviour of long waves in undeep water. This equation became the source of important breakthroughs in mechanics and nonlinear analysis and of many developments in algebra, geometry and physics. In 1907, the mathematics teacher published a Concise textbook on arithmetic and algebra. In early 1908 de Vries submitted a manuscript to Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde and, in April of that year, the editor of the journal, Jan Cornelis Kluyver (1860-1932), who replied to Korteweg: "I have perused the strange piece by Mister De Vries. It gives me the impression that the author has accidentally noticed a quite natural and unexceptional phenomenon, of whose true nature he makes no correct representation, and now more or less raises the status of what actually amounts to a commonplace thing to a miracle. ..." Gustav de Vries studied in Amsterdam under Van der Waals, Julius, Pesch and Korteweg. The latter also became his thesis advisor. He worked on his thesis while being employed as a teacher at the KMA (Royal Military Academy) in Breda (1892-1893) and at the "cadettenschool" te Alkmaar, (1893-1894). He served as a high school teacher at the HBS en Handelsschool of Haarlem from 1894 to 1931. Personal On 9 April 1896 he married Johanna Henriëtta Jacoba Boelen (27 Juni 1867, Monnickendam - 5 January 1923, Den Haag), a teacher of French language and literature. They had five children. On 13 December 1934 he attended a séance in Haarlem-Noord. On his way home he was hit by a car. He was taken to hospital, where he died three days later. Link to Wikipedia