Thursday, July 22, 2010

Update

Sorry for my absence. I've been working on my book for Springer Verlag. Tentatively titled, Modeling Ships and Space Craft: The Science and Art of Mastering the Oceans and Sky, it covers the history of hydrodynamic theory as it pertains to the use of scale models for the testing of ship design. It also includes the use of models in aerodynamics for airplanes and spacecraft, as well as modeling without physical models for ships like SpaceShipOne. It's coming along great!

I really enjoy writing about advances in technology at the start of the twentieth century. Those men took their ideas and brought about a new level of reality for all of us. It's not just things like the models for the design of seagoing vessels or the use of wind tunnels for testing airplane design. It's things like proving that a vessel being tossed about one a wave was working to maintain its equilibrium and that a ship was not slicing a path in the water but rather that the water was moving down and under the vessel. Then, rather leave it at that, these men took those insights and used them for designs that took advantage of this new understanding. Things like the bulbous bow - beneath the waterline to increase hydrodynamic efficiency.

Now that I'm a good way into the book, I'll be posting more often and about some of the more interesting things I find as I complete this work.

Stay curious!

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