Recent Theories of Turbulence

VON NEUMANN, John (1903-1957). Typed letter signed ("John von Neumann") to László Tisza, the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Mathematics, Princeton, New Jersey, 12 June 1950. With "Recent Theories of Turbulence," mimeographed manuscript. The letter one page on IAS stationery, the paper 70 pages, all quarto. Hole-punched and bound together in Accupress folder with typed cover label "Recent Theories of Turbulence / by / J. von Neumann" (letter a little creased and working loose from binder). Von Neumann sends an unpublished research paper to fellow Hungarian émigré physicist László Tisza at M.I.T. Von Neumann was a legendary polymath who made significant contributions in mathematics, computing, physics, and economics as one of the founders of game theory. In this paper, he surveys competing theories of turbulence, a notoriously difficult problem in hydrodynamics that occupied von Neumann during his pioneering work in scientific computing. In his covering letter, he remarks that any published version would require revision to account for recent work by J.M. Burgers and by G.K. Batchelor and S. Chandrasekhar. The manuscript therefore captures the state of the field at a moment of active development. However, the paper was not published during his lifetime, appearing only later in the Collected Works .

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