mathematics

Uriel Frisch

Uriel Frisch is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Uriel Frisch rather than just read about it. In short: Uriel Frisch (born on December 10, 1940 in Agen, France) is a French mathematical physicist known for his work on fluid dynamics and turbulence. Biography From 1959 to 1963 Frisch was a student at the École Normale Supérieure.

Key takeaways

Uriel Frisch belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Uriel Frisch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Uriel Frisch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Uriel Frisch (born on December 10, 1940 in Agen, France) is a French mathematical physicist known for his work on fluid dynamics and turbulence.

Biography From 1959 to 1963 Frisch was a student at the École Normale Supérieure. Early in his graduate studies, he became interested in turbulence, under the mentorship of Robert Kraichnan, a former assistant to Albert Einstein. Frisch earned a Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of Paris, and since then he has worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He retired in 2006, and became a director of research emeritus at CNRS. Frisch's wife, Hélène, is also a physicist and the grand daughter of mathematician Paul Lévy.

Research Frisch is the author of a 1995 book on turbulence and of over 200 research publications. One of his most cited works, published in 1986, concerns the lattice gas automaton method of simulating fluid dynamics using a cellular automaton. The method used until that time, the HPP model, simulated particles moving in axis-parallel directions in a square lattice, but this model was unsatisfactory because it obeyed unwanted and unphysical conservation laws (the conservation of momentum within each axis-parallel line). Frisch and his co-authors Brosl Hasslacher and Yves Pomeau introduced a model using instead the hexagonal lattice which became known as the FHP model after the initials of its inventors and which much more accurately simulated the behavior of actual fluids. Frisch is also known for his work with Giorgio Parisi on the analysis of the fine structure of turbulent flows, for his early advocacy of multifractal systems in modeling physical processes, and for his research on using transportation theory to reconstruct the distribution of matter in the early universe.

Awards and honors Frisch won the Peccot Prize of the Collège de France for his doctoral thesis in 1967, the Bazin Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1985, and the Lewis Fry Richardson Medal of the European Geosciences Union "for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of turbulence" in 2003. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2008. He is an Officier of the Ordre national du Mérite and the recipient of the 2010 Modesto Panetti e Carlo Ferrari prize. In 2020 he has been awarded with the prize EUROMECH, provided by the European Mechanics Society.

Selected publications Frisch, U.; Hasslacher, B.; Pomeau, Y. (1986), "Lattice-gas automata for the Navier-Stokes equation", Phys. Rev. Lett., 56 (14): 1505–1508, Bibcode:1986PhRvL..56.1505F, doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.56.1505, PMID 10032689 Frisch, Uriel (1995). Turbulence. The legacy of A. N. Kolmogorov. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-45103-5. MR 1428905. Frisch, U.; Matarrese, S.; Mohayaee, R; Sobolevski, A. (2002). "A reconstruction of the initial conditions of the universe by optimal mass transportation". Nature. 417 (6886): 260–262. arXiv:astro-ph/0109483. Bibcode:2002Natur.417..260F. doi:10.1038/417260a. PMID 12015595. S2CID 4379455.

References

Further reading Frisch, Uriel (2009), Notice sur les travaux de Uriel Frisch (PDF) (in French), French Academy of Sciences

External links Uriel Frisch at the Mathematics Genealogy Project Nice Uriel-fest, December 2010 (Photographs from a symposium in honor of Frisch)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Uriel Frisch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Uriel Frisch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Uriel Frisch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Uriel Frisch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Uriel Frisch

In research: Uriel Frisch appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Uriel Frisch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Uriel Frisch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, Cellular automatists, French fluid dynamicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Uriel Frisch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Uriel Frisch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Uriel Frisch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Uriel Frisch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Uriel Frisch in simple terms?

Uriel Frisch (born on December 10, 1940 in Agen, France) is a French mathematical physicist known for his work on fluid dynamics and turbulence. Biography From 1959 to 1963 Frisch was a student at the École Normale Supérieure.

Why does Uriel Frisch matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Uriel Frisch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Uriel Frisch.