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The Theory of Turbulence

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar's 1954 Lectures

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  • © 2011
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Editors:
  1. Edward A. Spiegel

    1. Dept. Physics, Pupin Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, USA

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  • Lessons from one of the greatest astrophysicists of our time Original lecture notes from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’s course on the theory of turbulence A Nobel laureate through the eyes and ears of the young Edward Spiegel, who grew to become an influential figure in convection and chaos theory
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Physics (LNP, volume 810)

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Table of contents (25 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-XVII
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  2. The Turbulence Problem

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 1-2
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  3. The Net Energy Balance

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 3-6
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  4. Interchange of Energy Between States of Motion

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 7-9
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  5. Some Remarks

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 11-12
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  6. The Spectrum of Turbulent Energy

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 13-17
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  7. Some Preliminaries to the Development of a Theory of Turbulence

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 19-20
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  8. Heisenberg’s Theory of Turbulence

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 21-27
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  9. Other Derivations of the k −5/3 Law

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 29-33
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  10. An Alternate Approach: Correlations

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 35-36
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  11. The Equations of Isotropic Turbulence

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 37-48
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  12. The Karman-Howarth Equations

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 49-50
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  13. The Meanings of the Defining Scalars

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 51-53
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  14. Some Results from the Karman–Howarth Equation

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 55-59
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  15. The Relation Between the Fourth and Second Order Correlations When the Velocity Follows a Gaussian Distribution

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 61-70
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  16. Chandrasekhar’s Theory of Turbulence

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 71-79
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  17. A More Subjective Approach to the Derivation of Chandrasekhar’s Equation

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 81-82
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  18. The Dimensionless Form of Chandrasekhar’s Equation

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 83-83
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  19. Some Aspects and Advantages of the New Theory

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 85-87
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  20. The Problem of Introducing the Boundary Conditions

    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
    Pages 89-89
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Keywords

About this book

In January 1937, Nobel laureate in Physics Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was recruited to the University of Chicago. He was to remain there for his entire career, becoming Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1952 and attaining emeritus status in 1985. This is where his then student Ed Spiegel met him during the summer of 1954, attended his lectures on turbulence and jotted down the notes in hand. His lectures had a twofold purpose: they not only provided a very elementary introduction to some aspects of the subject for novices, they also allowed Chandra to organize his thoughts in preparation to formulating his attack on the statistical problem of homogeneous turbulence. After each lecture Ed Spiegel transcribed the notes and filled in the details of the derivations that Chandrasekhar had not included, trying to preserve the spirit of his presentation and even adding some of his side remarks. The lectures were rather impromptu and the notes as presented here are as they were set down originally in 1954. Now they are being made generally available for Chandrasekhar’s centennial.

Reviews

From the book reviews:

“The book under review is part of the Lecture Notes in Physics series, and aims to ‘quickly and informally’ communicate knowledge in the subject. The book is structured in 25 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue. … The book is addressed to both the novice and advanced reader, as it provides basic and advanced proofs, as well as different approaches and derivation of classical results.” (Iuliana Stanculescu, Mathematical Reviews, May, 2014)

“The lecture notes on Turbulence by S. Chandrasekhar are transcribed and filled in with details by Edward Spiegel in the year 1954. … it is interesting to have a book on these lecture notes for three reasons: 1. The scientific historian will enjoy this compilation. 2. The didactically interested lecturer can learn much about presentations in theoretical physics. 3. Students will find many explicitly calculated details in the presentation of the mathematical formalism.” (Johannes Viktor Feitzinger, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1207, 2011)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Dept. Physics, Pupin Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, USA

    Edward A. Spiegel

About the editor

Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhar derived a novel theory of Turbulence in the 1950's. These notes give a first hand account from Chandrasekhar of the development of this theory. Transcribed by his then student Ed Spiegel, these notes provide a unique insight into the development of this theory. Ed Spiegel is a renowned and highly respected expert in the field of astrophysics, and astrophysical fluid dynamics (he coined the term Blazar), and he provides a wonderful introduction describing the course given by Chandrasekhar with some interesting anecdotes from the lectures as well as a short account of how the theory has evolved since Chandrasekhar's unique contributions over half a century ago.

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