Ludwig Prandtl : A Personal Biography Drawn from Memories and CorrespondenceWhen Ludwig Prandtl took up the Chair of Applied Mechanics at Göttingen
University in 1904, the small university town became the cradle of
modern fluid mechanics and aerodynamics. Not only did Prandtl found two
research institutions of worldwide renown, the Aerodynamische
Versuchsanstalt (AVA) and the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für
Strömungsforschung, but with the so-called ‘Göttingen School’ he also
established an exceptionally fertile line of scientific thinking, unique
for its special balance of intuition for physics and mathematical
precision. The scientific methods developed by Prandtl and his pupils
are manifested in numerous dissertations, monographs and textbooks that
now rate as classics and hence belong to the fundamental works on fluid
mechanics. Yet many of these publications have long been out of print
and inaccessible for study. The series Göttinger Klassiker der
Strömungsmechanik is thus making available selected publications that
emerged from Ludwig Prandtl’s ‘Göttingen School’ or stand in a
particular historical relationship to it. This highly personal biography
of Ludwig Prandtl compiled by his daughter, Johanna Vogel-Prandtl, is
complemented by numerous photographs depicting Prandtl’s working and
private life. It completes the picture of the founding father of modern
fluid mechanics whose scientific importance continues to resonate to
this day. |