On the heritage of Kurt Magnus in gyro technology

Abstract

Kurt Magnus (1912-2003) is one of the personalities who shaped research and teaching in applied mechanics during the 20th century. Through his work with his doctoral supervisor Max Schuler at the University of Göttingen, gyrodynamics became his most important field of work, which also led to his research in oscillations, multi‐body systems, and mechatronics. Magnus made significant contributions in all these fields. He was regarded as a gifted lecturer, and the close connection between scientific research and practical application was important to him. Life and scientific work of Kurt Magnus were, however, also characterized by his 7‐year deportation to the USSR in 1946. Despite this fate, he was able to continue his research under certain restrictions during this time. After returning to Germany, he became Professor of Mechanics at the University of Stuttgart in 1958. His appointment coincided with the gradual resumption of industrial activities in Germany in the field of gyro technology-activities that had come to a standstill at the end of World War II. In the years that followed, Magnus' institute became the scientific center for gyrodynamics in Germany. The activities of that time are reflected in a preserved collection of gyro instruments for research and teaching as well as in the co‐founding of an annual international conference on inertial technology, which continues to this day. Magnus' subsequent move to the Technical University of Munich in 1966 did nothing to change this. At that time, he was regarded as a doyen of gyro technology. After a short biography of Kurt Magnus, the paper addresses the recent revision and digitization of the gyro instrument collection and presents an outline of the history of the conference series providing details on how gyro technology has developed since his work in Stuttgart.