Michael Max Munk

Born in Germany about 1890, M. Max Munk earned doctorates in both physics and mathematics from the University of Göttingen in 1917. After World War I, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, later to become NASA) brought Munk to the United States. President Woodrow Wilson signed orders allowing Munk to come to the United States and work in government. These orders were required since Germany was a recent enemy and Munk had worked brief... more

Born in Germany about 1890, M. Max Munk earned doctorates in both physics and mathematics from the University of Göttingen in 1917. After World War I, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, later to become NASA) brought Munk to the United States. President Woodrow Wilson signed orders allowing Munk to come to the United States and work in government. These orders were required since Germany was a recent enemy and Munk had worked briefly for the German Navy. Munk began work at NACA in 1920 and proposed building the new Variable-Density Wind Tunnel (VDT). The VDT went into operation in 1922. Munk published more than 40 articles with NACA. Munk is best known for his development of thin airfoil theory, a means of modelling the behaviour of airfoils by separating their shape (the "mean camber line") and their varying thickness. This allows separate, and simpler, techniques to model each behaviour. Lift may be assumed to depend on the camber (and angle of attack) alone, and... less