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The Bjerknes Family: Hooked on Hydrodynamics |
| Section: NATURAL SCIENCE / SCIENTISTS: PAST AND PRESENT |
| Author: William J. McPeak |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1997 |
| Size: 3,330 Words, 22,057 Characters |
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The dynamics of water has stimulated thinkers for hundreds of years--Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, sometimes even a whole family.
Through three generations the Bjerknes family of Norway shared scientific insights and inspiration as they made significant contributions to the budding science of hydrodynamics, the branch of physics that deals with the motion of water and other fluids. Theirs was a saga beginning with Carl Anton Bjerknes (1825--1903), proceeding with his son Vilhelm (1862--1951), and continuing, in turn, with Vilhelm's son Jacob (1897--1975). Each man, drawing upon family and scientific curiosity, wrote his own chapter in the big book of physical science and its applications.
Carl began the process of looking at hydrodynamic theory. Vilhelm would build upon this and ...
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...a shock of white hair, benign but unemotional, he observed our efforts--and consternation--with charts he had helped develop half a century before.
From dancing balls in idealized fluids to key-punched equations for a weather computer called MANIAC, the Bjerknes legacy had encompassed and enriched both the theoretical and practical possibilities of the study of the science of fluid motion.
(812 of 22,057 characters)
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