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Although the names of
Prandtl and Meyer are now universally connected with fans of expansion or compression waves in high-speed gas flows, their leading role in the discovery of oblique-shock waves has been forgotten. Present-day textbooks on compressible flow and gas dynamics simply present the
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oblique shock theory without attribution. The last textbook to properly acknowledge
Prandtl and Meyer for oblique-shock theory was apparently written in 1947. Nonetheless, the Ph.D. dissertation of Theodor Meyer in 1908 is arguably one of the most influential in the entire field of
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After the war, Meyer sought further employment in theoretical physics but could not find it in depression-era postwar
Germany. Ludwig Prandtl was not financially able to hire him, but Meyer did design the
225:, Germany on the theory of supersonic gas flows, then a brand-new field of study that we now call compressible flow or gas dynamics. In particular, Meyer developed the theory for how gases traveling at
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Until recently, nothing was known about
Theodor Meyer's life after he finished his Ph.D. research in 1908. We now know that he served as a junior officer in the German infantry during
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Meyer subsequently worked as an engineer and as a high-school teacher of math and physics. By the time of his death at almost age 90 in 1972, not even his family or his neighbors in
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that
Prandtl wanted to build. Prandtl sought funding from the German military to build this advanced aerodynamic test facility, but he did not succeed.
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has become legendary, and Meyer complemented his advisor's strengths with a formidable mathematical talent.
241:, then the underlying theory appeared in Meyer's Ph.D. dissertation, hence the present terminology for the
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and is credited as one of the pioneers in the establishment of the scientific discipline known today as
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During the first decade of the 20th century, Meyer worked under
Prandtl's guidance at the
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G. S. Settles, E. Krause, and H. Fütterer: Theodor Meyer – Lost pioneer of gas dynamics,
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L. Prandtl: Neue
Untersuchung über die strömende Bewegung der Gase und Dämpfe,
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Die
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waves, and how they accelerate smoothly through what we now call a
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New York:Wiley, 1957 (reprint available from Dover
Publications).
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Modern compressible flow: With historical perspective,
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406:Göttingen University, 1908, Ph.D. Dissertation.
154:(July 1, 1882 – March 8, 1972) was a German
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282:supersonic wind tunnel
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393:(1), pp. 23–30, 1907
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172:compressible flow
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103:Gas dynamics
72:(1972-03-08)
56:Lower Saxony
52:Bad Bevensen
449:1882 births
444:1972 deaths
266:Fritz Haber
258:World War I
188:mathematics
79:Nationality
433:Categories
415:R. Sauer:
402:T. Meyer:
295:References
200:Carl Runge
44:1882-03-01
223:Göttingen
182:Biography
158:born in
117:Children
192:physics
164:Germany
60:Germany
280:for a
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109:Spouse
83:German
190:and
67:Died
38:Born
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221:in
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