In Memoriam: Kurt Falke Wissbrun (1939 - 2023)

Kurt was born in Germany in 1930 and came to the United States in 1939. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1952 and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Yale University in 1956. Kurt held a Dreyfus Fellowship at the University of Rochester from 1955 to 1957, after which he joined the Celanese Corporation (later Hoechst-Celanese) in Summit, New Jersey as a research chemist, reaching the top level of Senior Research Associate in 1970. He retired in 1990, but continued to work as an industrial consultant.

Kurt met Arthur B. Metzner and James L. White at a rheology short course in the early 1960’s, and this was the beginning of a decades-long association with the Chemical Engineering Department at the University of Delaware. He informally co-advised a number of Metzner’s Ph.D. students and he brought an industrial perspective to the Delaware rheology program. He was formally appointed as an Adjunct Professor at Delaware in 1974.

Kurt‘s research at Celanese, which led to twelve patents, focused on the rheology and processing of linear polyethylenes, oxymethylene copolymers, and aromatic liquid crystalline polyesters, as well as the interaction of ionic charges on polymers. His collaboration with Metzner involved studies of shear-induced phase separation of polymer solutions. His published work includes a number of landmark papers on thermotropic liquid crystalline polyester melts, and he was instrumental in facilitating the transfer of samples for use in academic research on liquid crystalline polymers. In addition to articles and book chapters Kurt co-authored the book Melt Rheology and Its Role in Plastics Processing in 1990 with John M. Dealy. During Kurt’s years of professional activity the Society of Rheology was a venue in which academic, industrial, and national laboratory scientists and engineers could interact vigorously and influence one another and rheological science. Notably, Kurt was the last industrial recipient of the Bingham Medal.

Kurt was a golfer and he was also a devoted opera fan; for many years he had two simultaneous subscriptions to the Metropolitan Opera, with second-row-center Grand Tier seats. While still living and working in Summit he bought a small apartment in New York City near the Metropolitan Opera to avoid the late-night trip back to Summit, and following his retirement he moved to the New York apartment permanently. It was not unusual for him to go to Chicago for a weekend to see several performances at the Lyric Opera, and year-after-year he took guided opera tours to Europe with the same small group of friends. After retirement he also took courses at Columbia and Fordham, the latter just a few blocks from his apartment.

In addition to his membership in the Society of Rheology, which he represented on the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics before becoming SOR President, Kurt was a member of the American Chemical Society, the British Society of Rheology, and Sigma Xi. He is survived by his nieces Helen and Marion Rosenau and nephew Ken Rosenau.

A short oral history conversation recorded in New York City in June, 2022, with Gareth McKinley and Morton Denn will be available on the website of AIP’s Center for the History of Physics (CHP) by the time of the 2025 Santa Fe meeting.