Otto Laporte

Physicist, born in Mainz, Germany. He went to the USA on a postgraduate fellowship to work for the National Bureau of Standards (1924–6), then became a professor at Michigan (1926–71). A pioneer in plasma physics and atomic spectroscopy, he was also a visiting professor in Japan (1928, 1937), and a science attaché with the American Embassy in Tokyo (1960–3).

Laporte was born in Mainz, Germany, on July 23, 1902. In the group around Sommerfeld in Munich Laporte met and worked with Werner Heisenberg, Gregor Wentzel, Karl Herzfeld, Paul Peter Ewald and Wolfgang Pauli. Otto Laporte came to the US in 1924 as one of the first Rockefellar fellows. Laporte became naturalized U.S citizen in 1935. In 1944 Laporte began a new career in fluid mechanics. Laporte was a charter member of the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics and served as chair of the Division in 1965. Laporte died of rapidly progressing cancer on March 28, 1971 in Ann Abor, Michigan. His death came after his name had been slated for presentation for election to the National Academy of Sciences at its annual meeting in April of that year. Taking an action it had never taken before, the Academy elected Otto Laporte to membership, posthumously. The APS established the Otto Laporte Award for Research in Fluid Dynamics