2011/07/24 by Eberhard Bodenschatz, Michael Eckert, Bodenschatz, Eberhard +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn) #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #cond-mat.stat-mech #nlin.PS #physics.flu-dyn #physics.hist-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1107.4729
Draft of our Chapter for "A Voyage Through Turbulence", edited by, P. A. Davidson, Y Kaneda, H.K. Moffatt \& K.R. Sreenivasan, Cambridge University Press, Oct. 2011, ISBN-13: 9780521149310
arxiv created 2011/07/24 · openalex publication_date 2011/07/24 · arxiv updated 2011/07/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
This is a historical review of "Prandtl and the Göttingen School" from his first work in 1898 to after WWII. We report the development of the boundary layer theory and the investigations that lead Ludwig Prandtl in the spring of 1945 to use a energy cascade model to derive for fully developed turbulence the Kolmogrov length scale. Working at the end of WWII he was not aware of the work by Kolmogorov. Thus Ludwig Prandtl was before Onsager, von Weizäcker, and Heisenberg in rederiving parts of K41 theory. In our historical analysis we rely heavily on exchanges between Ludwig Prandtl with Theodore von Kármán and Goeffrey Ingram Taylor and on the original notes by Ludwig Prandtl and others.