Richard von Mises

Born Apr. 19, 1883, in L’vov; died July 14, 1953, in Boston. German mathematician; specialist in mechanics.

Mises graduated from the University of Vienna in 1905. From 1909 to 1918 he was a professor at the University of Strasbourg, and from 1920 to 1933 at the University of Berlin, where he also founded and became director of the Institute of Applied Mathematics. In 1933, Mises emigrated from fascist Germany and from 1933 to 1939 was a professor at the University of Istanbul in Turkey. Beginning in 1939 he was a professor at Harvard University. His principal works dealt with probability theory, aeromechanics, and applied mechanics. Mises introduced into general use in probability theory the Stieltjes integral and was the first to explain in detail the importance of the theory of Markov chains for physics.