At Easter 1902 I had sat my final college examination, and was now studying mathematics. This was not simple for me: Although one can see what follows from certain algebraic manipulations, why would this be done? “By mathematics, you are convicted, instead of convinced”, according to the philosopher Schopenhauer. After some time, I realized that, …
Category Archives: History
The History of the Navier-Stokes Equations
Over the course of a few years I have collected pictures, biographies, and other tidbits about the many famous people who have created, studied, and dedicated their lives to the Navier-Stokes equations. I set it to the music of Carmina Burana of the MIT Choir (Creative Commons). Enjoy!
Foundations of Turbulence
The mathematical formulation of the problem of homogeneous turbulence is this: Given an infinite body of uniform fluid in which motions conform to the equations and, and given that at some initial instant the velocity of the fluid is a random function of position described by certain probability laws which are independent of position, to …
Calculator Museums
http://datamath.org/ There are a few wonderful websites online that show the history of calculators. I am very partial to Casio myself, but the Data Math Museum of Calculators has some very interesting history related to the TI series. Also, for those of you who grew up in the United States, one might remember the Little …
A Hypersonic Transport Concept
Psautier de St Louis, 1270
Silicon Graphics Tech. Advice
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/sgi.html This amazing website contains lots of great technical information on SGI. Many of my students have no idea what SGI is, which is unfortunate, but a quick Wikipedia read is just a Google search away. I grew up with some SGI machines, where I remember running some of my first CFD codes on late …
On Teaching Philosophy
You asked me how should I best teach them. Should I teach them from the point of view of the history of science the applications? My theory is that the best way to teach is to have no philosophy. We must be chaotic and confuse them in the sense that you use every possible way …
Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov – A Digital Tribute
http://kolmogorov.com The great Academacian Andrei Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, who pioneered turbulence theory and started the Russian school, has fans overseas (big surprise!). I always wanted to create a website with a collection of his pictures, portraits, important articles, and anything else I could find online or off. Someone of course beat me to it! A recommended …
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Edward Burra Interview
The BBC, a long time ago, published an interview with the great British artist Edward Burra. https://vimeo.com/20763625. I have always loved his paintings of the Spanish civil war and its aftermath, his adventures in Paris and Parisian culture, and his lamentation of the destruction of the English country side. Most of his paintings are housed …