Mathwar/Personlist/Prandtl Ludwig
(* February 4th 1875, † August 15th 1953)
He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used to underlay the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering.
Life
Prandtl and his student Theodor Meyer developed the first theories of supersonic shock waves and flow in 1908. The Prandtl-Meyer expansion fans allowed for the construction of supersonic wind tunnels. He had little time to work on the problem further until the 1920s, when he worked with Adolf Busemann and created a method for designing a supersonic nozzle in 1929. Today, all supersonic wind tunnels and rocket nozzles are designed using the same method. A full development of supersonics would have to wait for the work of Theodore von Kármán, a student of Prandtl at Göttingen. Until 1945 Prandtl worked closely with the RLM (Reichsluftfahrtministerium).