1. Johann Hadji Argyris FRS was a Greek pioneer of computer applications in science and engineering, among the creators of the finite element method, and later Professor at the University of Stuttgart and Director of the Institute of Structural Mechanics and Dynamics in Aerospace Engineering.
John Argyris was born in Volos, Greece but the family moved to Athens where he was educated in the Classical Gymnasium.
John Argyris studied civil engineering for four years in the National Technical University of Athens and then in the Technische Hochschule in Munich, receiving his Engineering Diploma in 1936.
In 1959, John Argyris was appointed a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart and director of the Institute of Structural Mechanics and Dynamics in Aerospace Engineering.
John Argyris created the Aeronautical and Astronautical Campus of the University of Stuttgart as focal point for applications of digital computers and electronics.
John Argyris was involved in and developed to a large extent the Finite Element Method along with Ray William Clough and Olgierd Zienkiewicz after an early mathematical pre-working of Richard Courant.
John Argyris was awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society Silver Medal in 1971 and an honorary Doctorate of Science in Maths from Athens University in 1989.
John Argyris was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1986.
Professor John Argyris commenced his scientific career at Imperial College in 1949 and subsequently accepted in 1959 a joint appointment as Professor at Imperial College and Professor and Director of the Institute of Astronautical Structures at Stuttgart.
Professor John Argyris pioneered in the United Kingdom and Europe computer mechanics and established in the early 1950s the matrix structural theory introducing the first finite elements concepts including effects of material and geometrical nonlinearities.
When World War II started John Argyris was in Berlin at the Technische Hochschule.
John Argyris was arrested and accused of passing research secrets to the Allies.
John Argyris was saved from execution by Admiral Canaris who arranged his escape.
John Argyris died in Stuttgart and is buried in the Sankt Jorgens Cemetery in the city of Varberg, Sweden.
John Argyris's uncle, Constantin Caratheodory, was a Greek mathematician of the Modern Era.