Otto Brune

Otto Walter Heinrich Oscar Brune (10 January 1901– 1982) undertook some key investigations into network synthesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he graduated in 1929. His doctoral thesis was supervised by Wilhelm Cauer (and Ernst Guillemin) who suggested that he provide a proof of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the realisability of multi-port impedances. Cauer himself had found a necessary condition but had failed to prove it to be sufficient. Brune coined the term "positive-real" (PR) for that class of analytic functions that are realisable as an electrical network using passive components. Brune also showed that if the case is limited to scalar PR functions then it is not necessary to allow ideal transformers (a limit to the usefulness of the theory) to be assured of a realisable network solution. The eponymous "Brune cycle" continued fractions were invented by Brune to facilitate this proof.

Background

Brune was born in Kimberley, South Africa in 1901 and returned there in 1935.

References

• E. Cauer, W. Mathis, and R. Pauli, "Life and Work of Wilhelm Cauer (1900–1945)", Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Symposium of Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems (MTNS2000), Perpignan, June, 2000. Retrieved online 19th September 2008.
• O. Brune, "Synthesis of a finite two-terminal network whose driving-point impedance is a prescribed function of frequency", Doctoral thesis, MIT, 1931. Retrieved online 22nd March 2010.
• O. Brune, "Synthesis of a finite two-terminal network whose driving-point impedance is a prescribed function of frequency", MIT Journal of Mathematics and Physics, vol 10, pp 191–236, 1931.
• O. Brune, "Equivalent Electrical Networks", Phys. Rev., vol 38, pp 1783–1783, 1931.
• Seising, Rudolf, Die Fuzzifizierung der Systeme, Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005