doctoral thesis was on hydrodynamics. Laporte was one of the charter members of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, and he served as the division's chairman in 1965. Laporte had a number of hobbies, which included playing the piano and horticulture, specializing in plants of the cactus and the euphorbia families. Otto Laporte died in 1971 in Ann Arbor, Michigan of stomach cancer leaving Adele Laporte (wife) and daughters Claire Laporte, Irene Laporte () and Marianne Laporte. Honors 1971 – First person posthumously elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1972 – American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics, established the Otto Laporte Memorial Lectureship (which in 1985 was changed into the Otto Laporte Award) Books Otto Laporte Theorie der Multiplettspektren Offprint from Walter Grotrian et al., Grundlagen der Astrophysik Vol. 3, Part 2 (Springer, 1930) Otto Laporte and R. C. F. Bartels An Investigation of the Exact Solution of the Linearized Equations for the Flow Past Conical Bodies (Michigan University Ann Arbor Office of Research Administration, 1948) Arnold Sommerfeld, translated from the first German edition by Otto Laporte and Peter A. Moldauer Optics - Lectures on Theoretical Physics Volume IV (Academic Press, 1964) [German title and publisher: Arnold Sommerfeld Optik - Vorlesungen über theoretische Physik Band 4 (Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1950)] Selected literature Otto Laporte Zur Theorie der Ausbreitung elektromagnetischer Wellen auf der Erdkugel, Annalen der Physik, 375 (8) 595-616 (1923). J. E. Mack, Otto Laporte, and R. J. Lang The Application of the X-Ray Laws to Optical Spectra of Higher Rank, and the Classification of Ga IV and Ge V, Phys. Rev. 31 (5) 748 - 772 (1928). Mack and Laporte are cited as being at the University of Michigan. Lang is cited as being at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Article received February 1928. O. Laporte and D. R. Inglis Resonance Separations in Configurations of type p5s and d9s, Phys. Rev. 35 (11) 1337 - 1341 (1930). The authors are cited as being at the Department of Physics, University of Michigan. Article received April 21, 1930. Otto Laporte and George E. Uhlenbeck Application of Spinor Analysis to the Maxwell and Dirac Equations, Phys. Rev. 37 (11) 1380 - 1397 (1931). The author is cited as being at the Department of Physics, University of Michigan. Article received February 24, 1931. Otto Laporte, George R. Miller, and Ralph A. Sawyer The First Spark Spectrum of Rubidium (Rb