How has human civilization advanced because of our knowledge of fluid mechanics - Essay Example

Professor Mohamed Gad-El-Hak of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana writes that the art of fluid mechanics possibly has its roots in prehistoric times when streamlined spears, sickle-shaped boomerangs and fin-stabilized arrows evolved by trial and error by our Stone Age ancestors. Over 8,000 years ago, as agriculture became the way of life, complex irrigation canals were built along river valleys to control water flow, freeing crop growth from the vagaries of the weather (Gad-El-Hak). The Greek mathematician Archimedes (287-212 BC) discovered the laws of buoyancy forces on submerged objects and laid the foundation stone for the science of Hydrostatics.

The cartoon image of Archimedes having discovered the laws of buoyancy in his bath tub and running naked through the streets of Greece shouting “Eureka” is familiar to all of us. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) observed and sketched the nature of turbulent flow in a water jet issuing from a square hole into a pool and wrote that “the water jet had two motions, one due to the principal current and the other to random and reverse motion” (Gad-El-Hak, 1998). Many other scientists and thinkers, including , Isaac Newton, Daniel Bernoulli and Osborne Reynolds have made important contributions to this science.

One feature of the advancement of human civilization is the interconnection of the world. Oil from the middle-east is carried by ships to North America and Europe, grain from North America is transported Asia and Africa, iron ore and other minerals get shipped for processing to manufacturing plants all over the world. Containerized manufactured products ranging from cars to electronics and clothing are shipped all across the world. At the end of 2010, the global maritime industry had some 55,000 cargo vessels carrying over 1,350 million DWT of cargo representing around 90% of global trade (IMO, p. 6-12). The science of fluid mechanics plays an