Diederik Korteweg

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Diederik Johannes Korteweg

Diederik Johannes Korteweg (31 March 1848, Den Bosch – 10 May 1941, Amsterdam) was a Dutch mathematician. He is now remembered for the Korteweg–de Vries equation.

[edit] Early Life and Education

Diederik Korteweg's father was a judge in 's-Hertogenbosch (also known as Den Bosch) in the south of The Netherlands. It was in that town that Diederik attended schools, studying at a special academy which prepared students for a military career. However, he decided against a military career and, making the first of his changes of direction, he began his studies at the Polytechnical School of Delft. Korteweg originally intended to become an engineer but, although he maintained an interest in mechanics and other applications of mathematics throughout his life, his love of mathematics made him change direction for the second time when he was not enjoying the technical courses at Delft. He decided to terminate his course and pull out of his studies so that he could concentrate on mathematics. He then enrolled in mathematics and mechanics courses qualifying him to become a high school teacher.

One of his students was Gustav de Vries. One of his most famous papers is his 1895 paper in Philosophical Magazine.

[edit] Further reading

Bastiaan Willink, The collaboration between Korteweg and de Vries — An enquiry into personalities, History of Physics, 16 p., October 2007 (lanl.arXiv.org).
D. J. Korteweg and G. de Vries, On the Change of Form of Long Waves advancing in a Rectangular Canal and on a New Type of Long Stationary Waves, Philosophical Magazine, 5th series, Vol. 39, pp. 422-443 (1895).