John Argyris

John Hadji Argyris (Greek: Ιωάννης Αργύρης; * 19 August 1913 in Volos, Greece; – 2 April 2004 in Stuttgart) was among the creators of the Finite Element Method (FEM) and lately Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Director of the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures.
His uncle Constantin Carathéodory was a Greek mathematician of the Modern Era.

Curriculum

John Argyris studied civil engineering in Athens and Munich and received his diploma in 1936. He was then employed at Gollnow company in Stettin, where he was involved among other things in high radio transmitter masts. He was imprisoned by the Nazi's for some time but with the help of Admiral Canaris he escaped to Switzerland where he continued his studies in ETH Zürich. In 1943 he joined the research department of the Royal Aeronautical Society in England. Starting from 1949 he was lecturer in aeronautical engineering at the Imperial College London of the University of London, where he assumed a chair in 1955. In 1959 Argyris was appointed a professor at the Technical University of Stuttgart (today University of Stuttgart) and created the Institut for statics and dynamics of aerospace structures.

Scientific work

Argyris was involved, and developed to a large extent the Finite Element Method along with Ray W. Clough and Olgierd Zienkiewicz after an early mathematical pre-working of Richard Courant.