Archimedes

Sending heartfelt greetings to Horst on the occasion of his 90th birthday . . .

I’m an applied mathematician with a lifelong interest in Archimedes—his finished works, the numerous fields of engineering, science, and mathematics he created, and his continuing influence on our modern world. However, I knew little about modern naval architecture and Archimedes’ influence on it until I connected with Horst more than 20 years ago.

In 2002 as I was preparing my paper Completing Book II of Archimedes’ ‘On Floating Bodies’, I learned through internet searches that Horst was the authority on Archimedes’ contributions to ship design. So I wrote to him and requested a copy of his paper, Approaches to Hydrostatic Stability of Floating Bodies and Ships Taken by Archimedes, Bouguer and Euler.

Horst quickly responded and, in addition to sending me his paper, graciously offered to critique the paper I was writing. He provided an extensive critique and I revised my paper accordingly; It benefitted greatly from his detailed analysis.

Again in 2014 Horst provided an extensive critique of a second mathematical paper on Archimedes’ floating bodies that I was preparing. Certainly I wrote an acknowledgement in both papers, but I want him to know that I am evermore grateful for his editorial help and support.

When I was organizing the Archimedes in the 21^st Century conference at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematics, Horst was the first scholar on Archimedes whom I invited to deliver a talk at the conference.

His masterful presentation now appears in the conference proceedings, published by Springer International. And a video of his full talk, Archimedes and Ship Design, can be viewed on the conference website.

My wife Billie and I visited Horst and Inge in Berlin in September 2013, four months after the Archimedes conference in New York. We remember their kindness and warm hospitality —taking us to historic sites in the city and the region (including Potsdam) and treating us to dinner and a classical music concert at the Kammermusiksaal.

Thank you, Horst, for your friendship and support over the past 20 years— and particularly for your contributions to the naval sciences that justly warrant this special issue of Ship Technology Research and celebrates your 90^th birthday.

As Archimedes would have said:

Chris Rorres

Professor Emeritus of Mathematics

Drexel University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Horst delivering his presentation Archimedes and Ship Design at the ‘Archimedes in the 21^st Century’ conference at New York University (May 2013).

Horst and Inge at the ‘Archimedes in the 21^st Century’ conference at New York University (May 2013)

Horst at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin (September 2013)

Horst, Inge, and Chris Rorres in Berlin (September 2013)