Brief History of the Early Development of Theoretical and Experimental Fluid Dynamics
Brief History of the Early Development of Theoretical and Experimental Fluid Dynamics John D. Anderson Jr. Aeronautics Division, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA 1 INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction 1 2 Early Greek Science: Aristotle and Archimedes 2 As you read these words, there are millions of modern engi- neering devices in operation that depend in part, or in total, 3 DA Vinci’s Fluid Dynamics 2 on the understanding of fluid dynamics – airplanes in flight, 4 The Velocity-Squared Law 3 ships at sea, automobiles on the road, mechanical biomedi- 5 Newton and the Sine-Squared Law 5 cal devices, and so on. In the modern world, we sometimes take these devices for granted. However, it is important to 6 Daniel Bernoulli and the Pressure-Velocity pause for a moment and realize that each of these machines Concept 7 is a miracle in modern engineering fluid dynamics wherein 7 Henri Pitot and the Invention of the Pitot Tube 9 many diverse fundamental laws of nature are harnessed and 8 The High Noon of Eighteenth Century Fluid combined in a useful fashion so as to produce a safe, efficient, Dynamics – Leonhard Euler and the Governing and effective machine. Indeed, the sight of an airplane flying Equations of Inviscid Fluid Motion 10 overhead typifies the laws of aerodynamics in action, and it 9 Inclusion of Friction in Theoretical Fluid is easy to forget that just two centuries ago, these laws were Dynamics: the Works of Navier and Stokes 11 so mysterious, unknown or misunderstood as to preclude a flying machine from even lifting off the ground; let alone 10 Osborne Reynolds: Understanding Turbulent successfully flying through the air.
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