Rufus Oldenburger

Rufus Oldenburger (6 July 1908, Grand Rapids, Michigan – 1969) was an American mathematician and mechanical engineer.

Oldenburger received from the University of Chicago an A.B. degree 1928, a master's degree in mathematics in 1930, and a Ph.D. in 1934. After teaching mathematics at the University of Michigan, at the Case Institute of Technology, at Illinois Institute of Technology, and at DePaul University, he changed the focus of his research from pure mathematics to mechanical engineering and automatic control. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1936 at Oslo. For the academic year 1937–38 he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

Among his engineering achievements are many contributions in the fields of prime-mover speed governors, in particular electric governors for hydraulic turbines, diesel governors with optimum non-linear control, and a new type of hydraulic governor without dashpots. He also developed a computer-type gas turbine control, a signal stabilization device, and a rapid method of finding the roots of algebraic equations especially for the problem of control design. In 1956 he was named professor of engineering science and mechanical engineering at Purdue, later being appointed professor of electrical and mechanical engineering, and then professor of mechanical engineering in the School of Mechanical Engineering. He was also the founder and Director of the Automatic Control Center at Purdue. Author of two books and editor-co-author of five others, Oldenburger wrote some 110 papers. Forty of these were on pure mathematics devoted to higher dimensional determinants and matrices, higher degree polynomials and forms, and symbolic dynamics. He read and spoke eight modern languages and lectured abroad extensively.

In 1968, he was the first recipient of the Rufus Oldenburger Medal, an annually awarded medal named in his honor by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

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