The Turbulence Problem: A Persistent Riddle in Historical Perspective

1.            Hydrodynamics versus hydraulics

1.1 When and how turbulence became a problem

1.2 Felix Klein's efforts to bridge the gulf between hydraulics and hydrodynamics

1.3 The turbulence problem in the early Sommerfeld School

1.4 Hydraulics and turbulence

1.5 Turbulence in the wake of spheres and struts

2.            The turbulence problem in the 1920s

2.1 The turbulence problem in ZAMM

2.2 A new international forum for applied mechanics

2.3 The "great problem of developed turbulence"

2.4 Tollmien's solution of the "stability problem"

2.5 The quest for a universal law of turbulence

3.            The rise of statistical theories of turbulence

3.1 Atmospheric turbulence

3.2 Wind tunnel turbulence

3.3 Taylor's and K´arm´an's statistical theories

3.4 A symposium on turbulence

3.5 "Burgulence"

4.            Turbulence in WW II

4.1 Kolmogorov's statistical theory

4.2 Laminar wings

4.3 Turbulence problems in miscellaneous war applications

4.4 Fundamental wartime research on turbulence

5.            Expectations and hopes: 1946-1961

5.1 A "remarkable series of coincidences"

5.2 The turbulence problem ca. 1950

5.3 Turbulence as a challenge for American physics

5.4 The first textbooks on turbulence

5.5 Marseille 1961

6.            Computational approaches

6.1 John von Neumann and the Electronic Computer Project

6.2 Early numerical solutions of the stability problem

6.3 The origins of Large-Eddy Simulation

6.5 Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS)

7.            Chaos and turbulence

7.1 Strange attractors

7.2 Precision experiments

7.3 Fractals

7.4 Coherent structures

7.5 "Whither turbulence"

8.            Turbulence as a challenge for the historian