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George W. Platzman (1920–2008)

Basic Facts

  • Full name: George William Platzman
  • Born: 19 April 1920, Chicago, Illinois, USA
  • Died: 2 August 2008 (age 88), Chicago, Illinois, USA; cause of death was heart failure
  • Spouse: Harriet M. Herschberger (married 1945; d. 1985)
  • Survived by: two nephews and one niece

Education

Year Degree / Institution
1940 B.S. in Mathematics and Physics, University of Chicago
1941 M.S., University of Arizona
1947 Ph.D. in Meteorology, University of Chicago

Career

  • WWII: Taught meteorology to Air Corps cadets at the University of Chicago while simultaneously pursuing doctoral work.
  • 1948: Joined the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Meteorology Department.
  • 1950: Served as consultant to the Meteorology group of the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Participated in the ENIAC forecast.
  • 1961: Meteorology Department merged with Geology to form the Department of Geophysical Sciences.
  • 1971–1974: Chairman, Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago.
  • Spent nearly his entire career at the University of Chicago until retirement as Professor Emeritus.

Major Scientific Contributions

ENIAC Forecast (1950)

Platzman was part of the team (alongside Charney, Fjortoft, and others) that carried out the first computer weather forecast on the ENIAC at Aberdeen, Maryland in April 1950. He served as a consultant to the project from the University of Chicago.

Historical Documentation of ENIAC Computations (1979)

Published “The ENIAC Computations of 1950 – Gateway to Numerical Weather Prediction” in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (Vol. 60, pp. 302–312). This paper, based on his Victor P. Starr Memorial Lecture delivered at MIT on 27 October 1978, provided a first-hand historical account of the ENIAC forecasts and became the definitive narrative of that landmark event. Peter Lynch later called it essential reading for understanding the birth of NWP.

Storm-Surge Forecasting

Platzman pioneered quantitative storm-surge forecasting. A 6-foot surge that hit Chicago’s Montrose Harbor in 1954 inspired this line of research. His colleague Akira Kasahara credited him with transforming “weather forecasting from qualitative guesswork to quantitative science.”

Interview with Jule Charney (1980)

In 1980, Platzman conducted a recorded interview with Jule Charney, who was then gravely ill. The interview was published in a 1990 American Meteorological Society monograph. Colleague Noboru Nakamura called it his “personal favorite,” praising its “first-hand view of the dawn of modern meteorology.”

Notable Students

His doctoral students included:

  • Norman A. Phillips – who went on to create the first successful general circulation model (1956)
  • Ferdinand Baer

The Platzman-Phillips advisor-student connection is significant: Platzman trained the man whose GCM experiment would inspire Smagorinsky, Arakawa, and an entire generation of climate modelers.

Personality and Anecdotes

  • Noboru Nakamura remembered him as “a man of gentle manners who maintained a sharp mind until the end of his life.”
  • He had an extraordinary passion for Frederic Chopin. He established the Rose K. Platzman Memorial Collection at the University of Chicago in honor of his mother, a piano teacher. The collection grew to nearly 500 items related to Chopin.
  • Alice Schreyer, director of Special Collections at the University of Chicago, noted his “enormous persistence and zeal” in acquiring Chopin materials, and his unique practice of immediately donating acquisitions after documentation.

Key Publications

  • Platzman, G. W. (1979). “The ENIAC Computations of 1950 – Gateway to Numerical Weather Prediction.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 60(4), 302–312.
  • Platzman, G. W. (1990). Interview with Jule Charney. In The Atmosphere – A Challenge: The Science of Jule Gregory Charney, AMS Monograph.

Connections to Other Scientists

  • Jule Charney: Worked together on the ENIAC forecast; Platzman later interviewed Charney near the end of his life.
  • Ragnar Fjortoft: Fellow member of the ENIAC forecast team.
  • Norman Phillips: Platzman’s doctoral student, who created the landmark 1956 GCM.
  • John von Neumann: Collaborated at the Institute for Advanced Study.
  • Noboru Nakamura and Akira Kasahara: Colleagues at Chicago who paid tribute to his legacy.

Sources

Accessed: 2026-04-02