scholarly journals Astrophysical fluid dynamics

2016 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon I. Ogilvie

These lecture notes and example problems are based on a course given at the University of Cambridge in Part III of the Mathematical Tripos. Fluid dynamics is involved in a very wide range of astrophysical phenomena, such as the formation and internal dynamics of stars and giant planets, the workings of jets and accretion discs around stars and black holes and the dynamics of the expanding Universe. Effects that can be important in astrophysical fluids include compressibility, self-gravitation and the dynamical influence of the magnetic field that is ‘frozen in’ to a highly conducting plasma. The basic models introduced and applied in this course are Newtonian gas dynamics and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) for an ideal compressible fluid. The mathematical structure of the governing equations and the associated conservation laws are explored in some detail because of their importance for both analytical and numerical methods of solution, as well as for physical interpretation. Linear and nonlinear waves, including shocks and other discontinuities, are discussed. The spherical blast wave resulting from a supernova, and involving a strong shock, is a classic problem that can be solved analytically. Steady solutions with spherical or axial symmetry reveal the physics of winds and jets from stars and discs. The linearized equations determine the oscillation modes of astrophysical bodies, as well as their stability and their response to tidal forcing.

At the Conversazione on 20 May 1954 the thirty-one exhibits covered a wide range of research activities and a more than usual number of Fellows took part in personally demonstrating aspects of their work. Sir Geoftrey Taylor, F.R.S., and Lord Rothschild, G.M., F.R.S., of the University of Cambridge, combined to show, with the aid of a microscope and a stroboscope, living spermatozoa swimming in water and, alongside for comparison, self-propelling mechanical models of spermatozoa which showed how spiral waves of bending can act as propellers and demonstrate the essential part which the body of the organism must play for this mode of propulsion to work.


2010 ◽  
Vol 663 ◽  
pp. 2-7
Author(s):  
H. K. MOFFATT

Ten years have elapsed since the passing of George Keith Batchelor (8 March 1920–30 March 2000), formerly Professor of Fluid Dynamics at the University of Cambridge, and Founder Editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics. It is fitting to remind the readers of this Journal what a great scientist he was, both in respect of his own contributions to our subject, and even more in respect of his inspirational influence on generations of research students and younger colleagues, and also more widely on the international stage, on which he was a revered, if sometimes controversial, personality.


Author(s):  
Aoife Kearins

George Gabriel Stokes spent most of his life at the University of Cambridge, where he undertook his undergraduate degree and later became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and Master of Pembroke College. However, he spent the first 13 years of his life in Skreen, County Sligo, Ireland, a rural area right by the coastline, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. As this paper will discuss, the time he spent there was short but its influence on him and his research was long reaching, with his childhood activities of walking by and bathing in the sea being credited for first piquing Stokes' interest in ocean waves, which he would go on to write papers about. More generally, it marked the beginning of an interest in fluid dynamics and a curious nature regarding natural phenomena in his surroundings. Stokes held a special affinity for the ocean for the rest of his life, constantly drawing inspiration for it in his mathematical and physical studies and referencing it in his correspondences. This commentary was written to celebrate Stokes' 200th birthday as part of the theme issue of Philosophical Transactions A . This article is part of the theme issue ‘Stokes at 200 (Part 1)’.


1960 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 107-118 ◽  

In July 1949 the Society of Experimental Biology and the Institute of Animal Behaviour together organized a Symposium for the discussion of a wide range of problems, neurological, physiological and psychological, in which the members of both groups were interested. The Symposium was held in the Zoological Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. K. S. Lashley came to England for this meeting, and no member of the large audience who heard him describe how he had set out ‘In search of the engram’, and what its upshot had been, is likely ever to forget the tremendous impression that he made. After the public discussions one morning, I walked with him back from the Zoological Department to Corpus Christi College, where he was staying. The sun shone with unclouded brilliance, and when we reached the College Lashley, who seemed, perhaps, a little tired, sat himself down on the stone steps leading to the main gate, one long leg stretched out towards the pavement, with not a single care for the curious, and slightly shocked glances of some of the passers-by. We were talking, not about any intricacies of animal behaviour, but about sailing and the sea, which he loved. He told me something about his own boats, and journeys he had made in them; but more about longer and unconventional voyages in small tramp steamers which took a long time, wherever they were going, and called at ports little known to the big luxury vessels for which he had no use at all.


Libri ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Clair Castle

Abstract RDS are usually cross-disciplinary, centralised services, which are increasingly provided at a university by the academic library and in collaboration with other RDM stakeholders, such as the Research Office. At research-intensive universities, research data is generated in a wide range of disciplines and sub-disciplines. This paper will discuss how providing discipline-specific RDM support is approached by such universities and academic libraries, and the advantages and disadvantages of these central and discipline-specific approaches. A descriptive case study on the author’s experiences of collaborating with a central RDS at the University of Cambridge, as a subject librarian embedded in an academic department, is a major component of this paper. The case study describes how centralised RDM services offered by the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) have been adapted to meet discipline-specific needs in the Department of Chemistry. It will introduce the department and the OSC, and describe the author’s role in delivering RDM training, as well as the Data Champions programme, and their membership of the RDM Project Group. It will describe the outcomes of this collaboration for the Department of Chemistry, and for the centralised service. Centralised and discipline-specific approaches to RDS provision have their own advantages and disadvantages. Supporting the discipline-specific RDM needs of researchers is proving particularly challenging for universities to address sustainably: it requires adequate financial resources and staff skilled (or re-skilled) in RDM. A mixed approach is the most desirable, cost-effective way of providing RDS, but this still has constraints.


2009 ◽  
Vol 55 ◽  
pp. 107-119
Author(s):  
J. T. Stuart

Leslie Howarth was born in Lancashire and studied at Accrington Grammar School and the University of Manchester, where he graduated in mathematics. Sydney Goldstein (FRS 1937) had a great impact on him, and he migrated with Goldstein to the University of Cambridge. There he studied for the Mathematical Tripos and then for a PhD under the guidance of Goldstein, gaining the Smith's Prize in the process. The 1930s were a golden age for fluid dynamics, both theoretical and experimental, partly because of the rapid rise of aviation in both Europe and North America. Howarth rapidly developed a formidable international reputation, producing a string of theoretical and computational papers at the cutting edge of research in the study of boundary layers in aerodynamics and fluid dynamics. In 1937–38 he spent a year in the USA at the California Institute of Technology, working with Theodore von Karman (ForMemRS 1946), during which they produced a remarkable paper of lasting importance in the theory of turbulence. During World War II Howarth worked for several UK government agencies, but afterwards he moved from Cambridge to the University of Bristol, where he developed a strong research school in theoretical fluid dynamics and applied mathematics.


Author(s):  
Gerald B. Feldewerth

In recent years an increasing emphasis has been placed on the study of high temperature intermetallic compounds for possible aerospace applications. One group of interest is the B2 aiuminides. This group of intermetaliics has a very high melting temperature, good high temperature, and excellent specific strength. These qualities make it a candidate for applications such as turbine engines. The B2 aiuminides exist over a wide range of compositions and also have a large solubility for third element substitutional additions, which may allow alloying additions to overcome their major drawback, their brittle nature.One B2 aluminide currently being studied is cobalt aluminide. Optical microscopy of CoAl alloys produced at the University of Missouri-Rolla showed a dramatic decrease in the grain size which affects the yield strength and flow stress of long range ordered alloys, and a change in the grain shape with the addition of 0.5 % boron.


Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Faith Mkwesha

This interview was conducted on 16 May 2009 at Le Quartier Francais in Franschhoek, Cape Town, South Africa. Petina Gappah is the third generation of Zimbabwean writers writing from the diaspora. She was born in 1971 in Zambia, and grew up in Zimbabwe during the transitional moment from colonial Rhodesia to independence. She has law degrees from the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Graz. She writes in English and also draws on Shona, her first language. She has published a short story collection An Elegy for Easterly (2009), first novel The Book of Memory (2015), and another collection of short stories, Rotten Row (2016).  Gappah’s collection of short stories An Elegy for Easterly (2009) was awarded The Guardian First Book Award in 2009, and was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, the richest prize for the short story form. Gappah was working on her novel The Book of Memory at the time of this interview.


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