August 19, 2013
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John Hadji Argyris (Greek: Ιωάννης Αργύρης; 19 August 1913 in Volos, Greece – 2 April 2004 in Stuttgart) was among the creators of the Finite Element Method (FEM) and lately Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Director of the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures. His uncle, Constantin Carathéodory, was a Greek mathematician of the Modern Era.

 He was born in Volos, Greece, but the family moved to Athens where he was educated in the Classical Gymnasium. He studied civil engineering for four years in the National Technical University of Athens and then in the Technical University Munich, receiving his Engineering Diploma in 1936. His first job was at the Gollnow company in Stettin, where he was involved among other things in high radio transmitter masts. He was imprisoned by the Nazis for some time but with the help of Admiral Canaris he escaped to Switzerland where he continued his studies in ETH Zurich. In 1943, he joined the research department of the Royal Aeronautical Society in England. Starting from 1949 he was lecturer in aeronautical engineering at the Imperial College London of the University of London, where he assumed a chair in 1955.

In 1959, Argyris was appointed a professor at the Technical University of Stuttgart (today University of Stuttgart) and director of the Institute for Statics and Dynamics of Aerospace Structures. He created the Aeronautical and Astronautical Campus of the University of Stuttgart as focal point for applications of digital computers and electronics.

He died in Stuttgart and is buried in the Sankt Jörgens Cemetery in the city of Varberg, Sweden.

Argyris was involved in and developed to a large extent the Finite Element Method along with Ray W. Clough and Olgierd Zienkiewicz after an early mathematical pre-working of Richard Courant.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1986.