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The Dawn of Fluid Dynamics: A Discipline Between Science and Technology

ISBN: 978-3-527-61074-7

June 2007

296 pages

Description
A remarkable account of the interaction between basic research and application, taking as its example the historical development of fluid dynamics in the first half of the 20th century. The book centers on the work of Ludwig Prandtl, founder of the aerodynamic research center (AVA) in Gottingen, whose work and decisive advances in boundary layer and wing theories became the basic material of fluid dynamics.
This is definitely not a biography of Prandtl (however desirable this might be), but a history of fluid dynamics a viewed by Prandtl's impact on it, focusing on the science/technology dualism. This means that the field is not treated merely as a byproduct of aviation history, but instead this is the first publication to describe the evolution of fluid dynamics as a major field in modern science and engineering.
While certainly suitable for other readers, this book is intended for natural scientists and engineers, as well as historians of science and technology.
About the Author
Michael Eckert studied physics at the Technical University Munich and received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University Bayreuth in 1979. He dedicated his subsequent career to the history of physics--with ramifications in scientific journalism and schoolbook editing. Since 1981 he was engaged in several projects on the history of modern physics at the Deutsches Museum, Munich. He authored and co-authored books and articles on such diverse specialties as the history of soild state physics and plasma physics. Recently he was directing a project on the famous theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld which resulted in a two-volume edition of Sommerfeld's scientic correspondence (2000 and 2004). His present work on the history of fluid dynamics is part of a research group at the Deutsches Museum, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, with the focus on science-technology-interactions in the 20th century.