Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:40:00.979Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Osborne Reynolds: a turbulent life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2011

By
Brian Launder  and
Derek Jackson
Edited by
Peter A. Davidson ,
Yukio Kaneda ,
Keith Moffatt  and
Katepalli R. Sreenivasan
Brian Launder
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Derek Jackson
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Peter A. Davidson
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Yukio Kaneda
Affiliation:
Nagoya University, Japan
Keith Moffatt
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Katepalli R. Sreenivasan
Affiliation:
New York University
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Scope

Articles on Osborne Reynolds' academic life and published works have appeared in a number of publications beginning with a remarkably perceptive anonymous obituary notice published in Nature within eight days of his death (on 21 February 1912) and a more extensive account written by Horace Lamb, FRS, and published by the Royal Society (Lamb, 1913) about a year later. More recent reviews have been provided by Gibson (1946), a student of Reynolds and later an academic colleague, by Allen (1970), who provided the opening article in a volume marking the passage of 100 years from Reynolds taking up his chair appointment at Manchester in 1868, and by Jackson (1995), in an issue of Proc. Roy. Soc. celebrating the centenary of the publication of Reynolds' 1895 paper on what we now call the Reynolds decomposition of the Navier–Stokes equations, about which more will be said later in the present chapter. A significant portion of the present account is therefore devoted to Reynolds' family and background and to hitherto unreported aspects of his character to enable his contributions as a scientist and engineer to be viewed in the context of his life as a whole. While inevitably some of what is presented here on his academic work will be known to those who have read the articles cited above, archive material held by the University of Manchester and The Royal Society and other material brought to light in the writers' personal enquiries provide new perspectives on parts of his career.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Voyage Through Turbulence , pp. 1 - 39
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, J., 1970. The life and work of Osborne Reynolds. In Osborne Reynolds and Engineering Science Today, edited by D.M., McDowell and J.D., Jackson, 1–82, Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Corrsin, S.C., 1952. Heat transfer in isotropic turbulence, J. Appl. Phys., 23, 113–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, F.A., 1911. The Reynolds of Suffolk, Visitation of England and Wales, 17, 172–176. Privately printed by Grove Park Press, Essex.Google Scholar
Dowson, D., Taylor, C.M., Godet, M. and Berthe, D. (Editors), 1987. Fluid-film Lubrication: Osborne Reynolds Centenary, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Eckhardt, B. (Editor), 2009. Turbulent transition in pipe flow – 125th anniversary of Reynolds' paper, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 367A, 448–559.
Fitzgerald, R., 2004. New experiments set the scale for the onset of turbulence in pipe flow, Physics Today, 57(2), 21–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, A.H., 1946. Osborne Reynolds and his Work in Hydraulics and Hydrodynamics, Longmans Green (commissioned by the British Council).Google Scholar
Hagen, G., 1854. Über den Einfluss der Temperatur auf die Bewegung des Wassers in Röhren, Math. Abh. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 17–98.
Hagen, G., 1869. Über die Bewegung des Wassers in cylindrischen, nahe horizontalen Leitungen. Math. Abh. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1–29.
Hof, B., Juel, A. and Mullin, T., 2003. Scaling of the turbulence transition threshold in a pipe, Phys. Rev. Lett., 91, 244502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J.D., 1995. Osborne Reynolds: scientist, engineer and pioneer, Proc. Roy. Soc., 451A, 41–86.Google Scholar
Jackson, J.D., 2010. Osborne Reynolds – Victorian scientist, engineer and pioneer, Memoirs of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society for the Session 2009–2010, Vol. 147.Google Scholar
Jackson, J.D. and Launder, B.E., 2007. Osborne Reynolds and the publication of his papers on turbulent flow, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech., 39, 18–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, C.A., 1907. History of Dedham, Reprinted from Dedham Parish Magazine with Additions, Wilks and Son, Colchester.
Lamb, H., 1913. Osborne Reynolds, 1842–1912, Obituary notices, Proc. Roy. Soc., 88, xv–xxi.Google Scholar
Launder, B.E., 2009. Osborne Reynolds: the turbulent years. Invited keynote paper, in Proc. Conf. Modelling Fluid Flow (CMFF '09), edited by J., Vad, Budapest University of Technology & Economics, Budapest, 28–40.Google Scholar
Mullin, T., 2011. Experimental studies of transition to turbulence in a pipe, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech., 43, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prandtl, L., 1910. Eine Beziehung zwischen Warmeaustausch und Strömungswiderstand der Flüssigkeiten. Phys. Z., 11, 1072–1078.Google Scholar
Prandtl, L., 1913. Flüssigkeitsbewegung. In Handwörterbuch der Naturwissenschaften, 4, 101–140.Google Scholar
Ramsey, R.J., 1949. Early Essex Patents, Essex Review, LVI, C17.Google Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1873. On the condensation of a mixture of air and steam upon cold surfaces, Proc. Roy. Soc., 21, 274–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1874. On the extent and action of heating surfaces of steam boilers, Manchester Lit. & Phil., Vol. 14, Session 1884–5.Google Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1879. On certain dimensional properties of matter in the gaseous state, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 170, 727–845.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1883. An experimental investigation of the circumstances which determine whether the motion of water shall be direct or sinuous and the law of resistance in parallel channels, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 174, 935–982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1886. On the theory of lubrication and its application to Mr Beauchamp-Tower's experiments, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 187, 157–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1895. On the dynamical theory of incompressible viscous fluids and the determination of the criterion, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 186A, 123–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1900. Papers on Mechanical and Physical Subjects, 1870–1880, Collected Works, Volume I, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1901. Papers on Mechanical and Physical Subjects 1881–1900. Collected Works, Volume II, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, O., 1903. Papers on Mechanical and Physical Subjects – the Sub-Mechanics of the Universe. Collected Works, Volume III, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds, O. and Moorby, W.H., 1897. On the mechanical equivalent of heat, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 190A, 301–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rott, N., 1990. Note on the history of the Reynolds number, Ann. Rev. Fluid Mech., 22, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schuster, A., 1925. Biographical Fragments, Section VII, 228–233, MacMillan and Co. Ltd., London.Google Scholar
Smith, R.A., 1997. Osborne Reynolds – the most distinguished engineering professor and an inspired choice, Queens College Record, 14–15.
Sommerfeld, A., 1908. Ein Beitrag zur hydrodynamischen Erklarung der turbulenten Flüssigkeits-bewegung. In Proc. 4th Int. Congr. Math., Rome, 3: 116–124.
Thompson, J., 1886. The Owens College: Its Foundation and Growth; and its Connection with the Victoria University of Manchester, Cornish, Manchester.Google Scholar
Thomson, J.J., 1936. Recollections and Reflections, G. Bell & Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Venn, J.A., 1954. Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 11, V, 279 and 281, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, E.G., 1938. The life and work of William Cawthorne Unwin, 54–58, and 75, Unwin Memorial Committee, London.Google Scholar
Wedlake, A.L., 1984. Old Watchet, Williton and Around, Exmoor Press.Google Scholar
White, W., 1844. History Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk. Reissued 1970, David & Charles.Google Scholar
Wright, A., 1912. Old Queens' Men, The Dial, 3, No. 13, 42.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×