{{short description|French mathematical physicist}} {{Infobox academic | name = Uriel Frisch | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1940|12|10}} | birth_place = Agen, France | death_date = <!-- {{death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date) --> | death_place = | occupation = Mathematical physicist | known_for = | title = Director of Research Emeritus | boards = {{UBL |French Academy of Sciences (2008) |Ordre national du Mérite }} | spouse = Hélène Frisch | relatives = Paul Lévy | awards = {{UBL |Peccot Prize of the Collège de France (1967) |Bazin Prize of the French Academy of Sciences (1987) |Lewis Fry Richardson Medal (2003) |Modesto Panetti e Carlo Ferrari Prize (2010) }} | alma_mater = French National Centre for Scientific Research | thesis_title = La propagation des ondes en milieu aléatoire et les équations stochastiques (Wave propagation in a random medium and stochastic equations) | thesis_url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241390054_La_propagation_des_ondes_en_milieu_aleatoire_et_les_equations_stochastiques | thesis_year = 1966 | doctoral_advisor = Robert Kraichnan | discipline = Physicist | sub_discipline = Fluid dynamics | workplaces = French National Centre for Scientific Research | notable_students = {{UBL |Marcel Lesieur (1973) |Claude Basdevant (1981) |Zhen-Su She (1987) |Silvio Gama (1993) }} | main_interests = | notable_works = ''Turbulence: The Legacy of A. N. Kolmogorov'' | notable_ideas = | footnotes = List of notable students from the Mathematics Genealogy Project.<ref>{{cite web |title=Uriel Frisch |url=https://www.mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=94475 |website=The Mathematics Genealogy Project |publisher=North Dakota State University |access-date=7 November 2025}}</ref> }}

'''Uriel Frisch''' (born on December 10, 1940 in Agen, France)<ref name="as"/> is a French mathematical physicist known for his work on fluid dynamics and turbulence.

==Biography== From 1959 to 1963 Frisch was a student at the École Normale Supérieure. Early in his graduate studies, he became interested in turbulence, under the mentorship of Robert Kraichnan, a former assistant to Albert Einstein.<ref>{{cite web |title=Renowned Turbulence Expert Uriel Frisch visits PKU:Hold onto Turbulence Tightly Like a "Bulldog" |url=http://web5.pku.edu.cn/engineering/xwzx/News/2833.htm |website=College of Engineering |publisher=Peking University |access-date=7 November 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304002311/http://web5.pku.edu.cn/engineering/xwzx/News/2833.htm |archive-date=4 March 2016 |date=2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Frisch earned a Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of Paris, and since then he has worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He retired in 2006, and became a director of research emeritus at CNRS.<ref name="as"/><ref name="cv">[http://www.oca.eu/uriel/curri_uf_engl.html Curriculum vitae], retrieved 2012-03-05.</ref>

Frisch's wife, Hélène, is also a physicist and the grand daughter of mathematician Paul Lévy.<ref>{{citation|title=A mathematician grappling with his century|first=Laurent|last=Schwartz|publisher=Springer|year=2001|isbn=978-3-7643-6052-8|page=141|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xVrC7ek7iRwC&pg=PA141}}.</ref>

==Research== Frisch is the author of a 1995 book on turbulence and of over 200 research publications.{{sfn|Frisch|1995}}

One of his most cited works, published in 1986, concerns the lattice gas automaton method of simulating fluid dynamics using a cellular automaton. The method used until that time, the HPP model, simulated particles moving in axis-parallel directions in a square lattice, but this model was unsatisfactory because it obeyed unwanted and unphysical conservation laws (the conservation of momentum within each axis-parallel line). Frisch and his co-authors Brosl Hasslacher and Yves Pomeau introduced a model using instead the hexagonal lattice which became known as the FHP model after the initials of its inventors and which much more accurately simulated the behavior of actual fluids.{{sfn|Frisch|Hasslacher|Pomeau|1986}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=Greg |title=The Life and Times of Cellular Automata |journal=New Scientist |date=8 October 1988 |volume=120 |issue=1633 |pages=44–47 |url=https://www.aivc.org/sites/default/files/airbase_3603.pdf |access-date=7 November 2025 |language=en}}</ref>

Frisch is also known for his work with Giorgio Parisi on the analysis of the fine structure of turbulent flows,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jaffard |first1=Stéphane |last2=Meyer |first2=Yves |last3=Ryan |first3=Robert D. |title=Wavelets: Tools for Science and Technology |date=2001 |publisher=Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics |location=Boston, MA |isbn=978-0-89871-448-7 |pages=241-266 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Wavelets/3Pc06HK4rVUC?hl=en&gbpv=0 |access-date=7 November 2025 |language=en}}</ref> for his early advocacy of multifractal systems in modeling physical processes,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Barndorff-Nielsen |first1=Ole E. |last2=Mikosch |first2=Thomas |last3=Resnick |first3=Sidney I. |title=Lévy Processes: Theory and Applications |date=30 March 2001 |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |isbn=978-0-8176-4167-2 |page=127|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/L%C3%A9vy_Processes/ExpTdTauXMwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA262&printsec=frontcover |access-date=7 November 2025 |language=en}}</ref> and for his research on using transportation theory to reconstruct the distribution of matter in the early universe.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Frisch |first1=Uriel |last2=Matarrese |first2=Sabino |last3=Mohayaee |first3=Roya |last4=Sobolevski |first4=Andrei |title=A reconstruction of the initial conditions of the Universe by optimal mass transportation |journal=Nature |date=May 2002 |volume=417 |issue=6886 |pages=260–262 |doi=10.1038/417260a |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/417260a |access-date=7 November 2025 |language=en |issn=1476-4687|arxiv=astro-ph/0109483 }}</ref>

==Awards and honors== Frisch won the Peccot Prize of the Collège de France for his doctoral thesis in 1967, the Bazin Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1985, and the Lewis Fry Richardson Medal of the European Geosciences Union "for his fundamental contributions to the understanding of turbulence" in 2003.<ref name="as"/><ref>{{cite web |title=EGS Awards - Lewis Fry Richardson Medallist - 2002 |url=https://www.egu.eu/egs/medalists/frisch03.htm |website=www.egu.eu |access-date=7 November 2025}}</ref>

He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences since 2008.<ref name="as">{{cite web |title=Uriel Frisch |url=https://www.academie-sciences.fr/uriel-frisch |website=www.academie-sciences.fr |publisher=Académie des sciences |access-date=7 November 2025}}</ref> He is an Officier of the Ordre national du Mérite and the recipient of the 2010 Modesto Panetti e Carlo Ferrari prize.<ref>{{cite web|title=Modesto Panetti e Carlo Ferrari prize|url=http://www.accademiadellescienze.it/premi/panetti-ferrari|publisher=Italian Academy of Sciences}}</ref> In 2020 he has been awarded with the prize EUROMECH, provided by the European Mechanics Society.<ref>{{cite web |title=Fluid Mechanics Prizes – Euromech |url=https://euromech.org/prizes/fluid |website=euromech.org |access-date=7 November 2025}}</ref>

==Selected publications== *{{citation|last1=Frisch|first1=U.|last2=Hasslacher|first2=B.|author2-link=Brosl Hasslacher|last3=Pomeau|first3=Y.|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.56.1505|issue=14|journal=Phys. Rev. Lett.|pages=1505–1508|title=Lattice-gas automata for the Navier-Stokes equation|volume=56|year=1986|bibcode=1986PhRvL..56.1505F|pmid=10032689|doi-access=free }} *{{cite book|mr=1428905|last=Frisch|first=Uriel|title=Turbulence. The legacy of A. N. Kolmogorov|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|year=1995|isbn=0-521-45103-5}}<ref>{{citation|title=Of cream and clouds (review of Faber's ''Fluid Dynamics for Physicists'' and Frisch's ''Turbulence'')|journal=Times Higher Education|date=8 November 1996|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=162027&sectioncode=1|first=Peter|last=Bradshaw}}</ref> *{{cite journal|journal=Nature|year=2002|arxiv=astro-ph/0109483|volume=417|issue=6886|pages=260&ndash;262|title=A reconstruction of the initial conditions of the universe by optimal mass transportation|last1=Frisch|first1=U.|last2=Matarrese|first2=S.|last3=Mohayaee|first3=R|last4=Sobolevski|first4=A.|doi=10.1038/417260a|bibcode=2002Natur.417..260F|pmid=12015595|s2cid=4379455}}

==References== {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==Further reading== *{{citation|url=http://www.academie-sciences.fr/academie/membre/FrischU_notice_2009.pdf|last=Frisch|first=Uriel|year=2009|publisher=French Academy of Sciences|language=French|title=Notice sur les travaux de Uriel Frisch}}

==External links== * {{MathGenealogy|id=94475}} * [https://www.flickr.com/photos/ansobol/sets/72157625666112736/ Nice Uriel-fest, December 2010] (Photographs from a symposium in honor of Frisch)

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Frisch, Uriel}} Category:Living people Category:École normale supérieure (Paris) alumni Category:University of Paris alumni Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences Category:French mathematicians Category:French physicists Category:French fluid dynamicists Category:Cellular automatists Category:French mathematical physicists Category:1940 births Category:People from Agen