Ludwig Prandtl
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.030889
It’s the birthday of Ludwig Prandtl, who was born in 1875 in Freising, Germany. Prandtl studied engineering at the Technical University of Munich. After graduating, he joined an engineering company, where he worked as a mechanical engineer. A project to design a pump changed his career. He became interested in fluid dynamics and, in 1901, became a professor of the subject at the University of Hanover. Prandtl’s investigations into fluid flow around objects revolutionized the field and proved important in the new field of aviation. Among his most significant discoveries was the existence of a boundary layer between an object’s surface and the uniformly moving fluid above it.
Date in History: 4 February 1875