In 1901, he co-developed the Runge–Kutta method, used to solve ordinary differential equations numerically.

He is also remembered for the Zhukovsky–Kutta aerofoil, the Kutta–Zhukovsky theorem and the Kutta condition in aerodynamics.

Kutta was born in Pitschen, Upper Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia (today Byczyna, Poland).

He attended the University of Breslau from 1885 to 1890, and continued his studies in Munich until 1894, where he became the assistant of Walther Franz Anton von Dyck.

[1] From 1899 to 1909, he worked again as an assistant of von Dyck in Munich; from 1909 to 1910, he was adjunct professor at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena.