INTERNET BOOK ON FLUID DYNAMICS
© Christopher Earls Brennen
Preface
This unusual internet construction is intended as a different kind of encyclopdia of fluid mechanics, designed to allow multiple choices for the student of that subject. It consists of a large number of interconnected webpages that allow the student to pursue a variety of learning paths and to jump from an elementary level webpage to more detailed and complicated research topics and to jump back up to the elementary level when that is desired. In creating this menagerie I have attempted to make full use of the added dimensions of the internet and to break free from the single dimension that a book (or collection of written notes) necessarily takes. Moreover this architecture allows me to leave room for future additions at the more advanced levels and so the matrix is necessarily open ended, indeed almost infinite.
Another advantage of this internet textbook is that, unlike conventional books, it allows the incorporation of as many photographs as I wish - and allows additions in the future as I continue to add to the material. I even intend to link to videos when I find the time to do this. Indeed readers are most welcome to contact me at brennen@caltech.edu at any time to suggest additions, whether text, photographs or video. The .htm and .pdf formats that I have employed readily allow additions.
I would also like to acknowledge the great debts I owe to many hundreds of colleagues in the fluid mechanics communities all over the world but particularly at the institution, the California Institute of Technology, where I was honored to spend almost all of my professional career. Among those closest colleagues, I owe a great debt to my dear friends, Allan Acosta, Ted Wu and Rolf Sabersky. Without their generosity and support my life would have been much less rich. In addition, I have a special word of recognition to a few very special colleagues from distant lands, Yoshi Tsujimoto, Yoi Matsumoto, Kenjiro Kamijo, S.Hori and Pan Zhongyong. Then, of course, I was privileged to work with a marvellous and talented group of graduate students whose efforts are reflected throughout these pages. To James Pearce, S.L.Huang, K.T.Oey, T.V.Nguyen, D.M.Braisted, R.J.Bernier, C.S.Campbell, D.R.Adkins, L. d'Agostino, B.Jaroux, H.K.Kytomaa, H.Ahn, R.J.Franz, S.L.Ceccio, S.Kumar, A.Guinzburg, D.P.Hart, Y.Kuhn de Chizelle, A.Bhattacharya, F.Z.Liu, E.A.McKenney, Y.-C.Wang, C.R.Wassgren, G.E.Reisman, R.V.Uy, T.A.Waniewski, F.d'Auria, R.Zenit, M.E.Duttweiler, R.Miskovish, Y.Hsu, S.R.Hostler, E,Koos, N.Vriend, and K.Ando, I express my sincerest gratitude. In addition, I am grateful to the hundreds of undergraduates with whom I was privileged to interact during more than forty years of teaching and administration at Caltech. Finally, my life has been immeasurably enriched by the friendship of two spectacular women, Doreen and Barbara, and for them no words will suffice.
Last updated 4/6/04.
Christopher E. Brennen