Nick: in the djvu books on Feynman Lectures on physics, you'll find this
comment on fluids and their difficulties in the first volume.
Finally, there is a physical problem that is common to many fields, that
is very old, and that has not been solved. It is not the problem of finding
new fundamental particles, but something left over from a long time
ago--over a hundred years. Nobody in physics has really been able to analyze
it mathematically satisfactorily in spite of its importance to the sister
sciences. It is the analysis of circulating or turbulent fluids. If we watch
the evolution of a star, there comes a point where we can deduce that it is
going to start convection, and thereafter we can no longer deduce what
should happen. A few million years later the star explodes, but we cannot
figure out the reason. We cannot analyze the weather. We do not know the
patterns of motions that there should be inside the earth. The simplest form
of the problem is to take a pipe that is very long and push water through it
at high speed. We ask: to push a given amount of water through that pipe,
how much pressure is needed? No one can analyze it from first principles and
the properties of water. If the water flows very slowly, or if we use a
thick goo like honey, then we can do it nicely. You will find that in your
textbook. What we really cannot do is deal with actual, wet water running
through a pipe. That is the central problem which we ought to solve some
day, and we have not.
If you search for fluid you'll find that he does comment often on them in
other contexts, and in the second volume he has two chapters on elasticity
and two on fluids. Bruce can comment on the Feynman books .. I know in some
circles they are considered poor but for me they are the quickest to get to
the point and best at clearly discussing the topic under consideration.
Feynman really does agree with your view that the more expert one is, the
more able to explain clearly and with sufficient depth. He definitely was
no snob!
If anyone wants to see the books in djvu form, you can find them at:
http://backspaces.net/temp/
-- Owen
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
