John P. Vinti

John Pascal Vinti (January 16, 1907, Newport, Rhode Island – September 28, 1990, Boston) was an American theoretical physicist, who published papers not only in physics, but also in mathematics and engineering. He is known for the Vinti integral.

Biography His father, Giovanni Giuseppe Vinti (1885–1959), was born in Naples, Italy. In 1922 John P. Vinti graduated from Rogers High School in Newport, Rhode Island. At his high school graduation, he was honored with a prize in scholarship and a prize in mathematics. At age 15 Vinti matriculated at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There he graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1927 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1932. As a postdoc he worked at the University of Pennsylvania from 1932 to 1934 on helium's absorption spectrum. At Aberdeen he developed a keen interest in celestial mechanics and "a close professional relationship with John von Neumann and Maria Goeppert-Mayer." and 1980s.

Lecture notes that Vinti used in a course that he taught in 1966 at the Catholic University of America and later at MIT were posthumously published in 1998 as the book Orbital and Celestial Mechanics, edited by Gim J. Der and Nino L. Bonavito. According to Der and Bonavito, Vinti's spheroidal method was "many years ahead of its time" and "predicts position and velocity vectors for satellites and ballistic missiles almost as accurately as numerical integration."

He was elected in 1936 a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Upon his death, John P. Vinti was survived by his sisters, Helena (1908–1995) and Anna (1911–2001), and their children. His nephew Jack Edmonston was his executor and was entrusted with the publication of Orbital and Celestial Mechanics.

John P. Vinti is a distant relative of Italian mathematician Calogero Vinti, who is memorialized by the Vinti Prize.

John P. Vinti is buried in Newton Cemetery in Newton, Massachusetts.

Selected publications

1971