Jan Burgers

Johannes (Jan) Martinus Burgers (January 13, 1895 – June 7, 1981) was a Dutch physicist and the brother of the physicist Wilhelm G. Burgers. Burgers studied in Leiden under Paul Ehrenfest, where he obtained his PhD in 1918. He is known for the Burgers' equation, the Burgers vector in dislocation theory and the Burgers material in viscoelasticity.

Jan Burgers was one of the co-founders of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (IUTAM) in 1946, and was its secretary-general from 1946 until 1952.

In 1931 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1955 he became foreign member. In 1959 he became also a member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Early life and education Burgers was born in Arnhem, Netherlands. There he attended both primary and secondary school. He attended Leiden University from 1914 until 1917. Burgers became a Doctor of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in 1918, writing a thesis entitled "Het Atoommodel van Rutherford-Bohr" (The Model of the Atom according to Rutherford and Bohr).

Burgers and his wife, Anna immigrated to the United States in 1955 where Burgers accepted a position of research professor at the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics (now the Institute for Physical Science and Technology) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Influenced by the British philosopher A. N. Whitehead, he had been thinking about this for 20 years.