The Origins of Fluid Mechanics

Abstract

Ludwig Prandtl's 1904 paper “Ueber Flüssigkeitsbewegung bei sehr kleiner Reibung” is generally considered to have marked the beginning of fluid mechanics. By chance, it appeared at the time that human flight was attracting considerable attention. Although empirical hydraulics and theoretical hydrodynamics had long been in existence, they were of little evident use to aeronautics, the one being too limited in scope and the other too impractical. Prandtl's boundary‐layer theory, on the contrary, gradually found use in the analysis of airfoils, propellers, and the behavior of immersed bodies in general. However, convenient as it is to consider the dated establishment of a new science, the fact remains that—as is true of all knowledge—no principle is formulated independently of prior developments, and these in turn are based on still earlier experience. The true origins of fluid mechanics lie in the hydraulics and hydrodynamics of the previous century, and the beginnings of these can likewise be traced back to the continued growth of civilization itself, as outlined in this paper.