Isao Imai (physicist)

{{Short description|Japanese theoretical physicist}}

{{use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Isao Imai (physicist)

| image = Isao Imai.jpg

| image_size = 200px

| caption =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1914|10|07|df=y}}

| birth_place = Dairen, Kwantung Leased Territory

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2004|10|24|1914|10|07|df=y}}

| nationality = Japanese

| field = Physics

| work_institutions = {{Plainlist|

• Imperial University of Tokyo
• Osaka University
• Kogakuin University

}}

| alma_mater = Imperial University of Tokyo

| doctoral_advisor = Kwan-ichi Terazawa

| known_for = Imai–Lamla method
fluid mechanics
mathematical physics

| prizes = {{Plainlist|

• Asahi Prize
• Japan Academy Prize
• Person of Cultural Merit
• Order of Culture
• Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure

}}

}}

{{Nihongo|Isao Imai|今井 功|Imai Isao|7 October 1914 – 24 October 2004}} was a Japanese theoretical physicist, known for fluid mechanics and mathematical physics.

Imai was born on 7 October 1914 in Dairen. A few years later, his family returned to Kobe, where he spent his childhood. He skipped one grade in elementary school and another in middle school, and he entered the First Higher School. He proceeded to the Imperial University of Tokyo, majoring in physics, and graduated at the age of 21. Upon his graduation in 1936, he was appointed assistant to Susumu Tomotika in the newly established Imperial University of Osaka. Two years later, he returned to the Imperial University of Tokyo as a lecturer, and in 1942 was promoted to assistant professor. From 1950, he was professor of physics in the faculty of science until his official retirement from the University of Tokyo in 1975. He was concurrently a member of the Aeronautical Research Institute, the University of Tokyo (1938–1964). He was also visiting professor at a number of overseas universities, the University of Maryland (1955–1957), Aix-Marseille University (1960), D.V.L. Aachen (1961–1962), Cornell University (1965–1966, 1977), and the Technical University of Aachen (1969). On his retirement from the University of Tokyo, he became professor emeritus and moved to Osaka University as professor of mechanical engineering in the faculty of engineering science (1975–1978), and then to Kogakuin University (1978–1987), where he got the title of professor emeritus. In 1994 he became an academician of the Japan Academy.{{Cite journal

| title = Professor Isao Imai, 1914–2004

| author = Hidenori Hasimoto

| journal = Fluid Dyn. Res.

| year = 2007 | volume = 39 | issue = 1–3 | pages = 1–4

| doi = 10.1016/j.fluiddyn.2006.11.001

| doi-access = free

}}