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George Hartley Bryan, Ludwig Boltzmann, and the Stability of Flight

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Abstract

A century ago, George Hartley Bryan (1864–1928) published his classic book, Stability in Aviation. I draw together some strands from events that awakened his interest in the nascent science of aviation, in particular the stability of flight. Prominent among those who influenced him was Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906), who held Bryan in high esteem for his contributions to thermodynamics and kinetic theory. I argue that the seeds of Bryan’s interest in aviation were sown at the British Association meeting at Oxford in the summer of 1894, at which Boltzmann was guest of honor. A joint discussion between Section A (Mathematical and Physical Science) and Section G (Mechanical Science) was devoted to the problems of flight, during the course of which Boltzmann revealed a hitherto unsuspected enthusiasm for flying.

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Notes

  1. Abraham (Bram) Stoker (1847–1912) was an Irish novelist, best known for his creation of Count Dracula (1897).

  2. Lord Kelvin, on receiving a letter from Major Baden-Powell on behalf of the Aeronautical Society inviting him to become a member, responded rather tartly on December 8, 1896: “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation…. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aeronautical Society”; letter quoted and reproduced in J. Laurence Pritchard, “Major B.F.S. Baden-Powell (1860–1937), Honorary Fellow: An Appreciation,” Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society 60 (1956), 9–24, on 13–14.

References

  1. Otto Lilienthal, Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst: Ein Beitrag zur Systematik der Flugtechnik. Auf Grund zahlreicher von O. und G. Lilienthal ausgeführter Versuche (Berlin: R. Gaertners Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1889); Zweite vermehrte Auflage (München and Berlin: Druck und Verlag von R. Oldenbourg, 1910); translated from the Second Edition by A.W. Isenthal as Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation: A Contribution Towards a System of Aviation. Compiled from the Results of Numerous Experiments made by O. and G. Lilienthal (London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911).

  2. Silvio R. Dahmen, “Boltzmann and the Art of Flying,” Physics in Perspective 11 (2009), 244-260.

  3. S.P. Langley, Experiments in Aerodynamics (City of Washington: Published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1891).

  4. Meitner, quoted in Carlo Cercignani, Ludwig Boltzmann: The Man Who Trusted Atoms (Oxford, New York, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 38.

  5. G.H. Bryan, Stability in Aviation: An Introduction to Dynamical Stability as applied to the Motions of Aeroplanes (London: MacMillan and Co., 1911).

  6. G.H. Bryan and W.E.Williams, “The Longitudinal Stability of Aerial Gliders,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London [A] 73 (1904), 100-116.

  7. Ibid., p. 100.

  8. S. Brodetsky, “Prof. G.H. Bryan, F.R.S.,” Nature 122 (1928), 849-850, on 850.

  9. L.B. [Leonard Bairstow], “George Hartley Bryan 1864-1928,” Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society 1 (1933), 139-142, on 139.

  10. A.B. Bassett, “Reply to a paper by Mr.G.H. Bryan,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 8 (1892-1895), 327-329.

  11. J. Larmor and G.H. Bryan, “On the present state of our knowledge of Thermodynamics, especially with regard to the Second Law,” Report of the Sixty-First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Cardiff in August 1891 (London: John Murray, 1892), 85-122.

  12. Ibid., p. 92.

  13. Records of the Tercentenary Festival of the University of Dublin held 5 th to 8 th July, 1892 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis, & Co. and London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1894).

  14. Boltzmann to FitzGerald, June 4, 1892, G.F. FitzGerald Correspondence, Royal Dublin Society Archive.

  15. Tercentenary Festival (ref. 13), Appendix G, p. 315 (Table K, Seats 334 and 355).

  16. G.H. Bryan, “Prof. Ludwig Boltzmann,” Nature 74 (1906), 569-570, on 570.

  17. Ibid., p. 570.

  18. G.H. Bryan, “The Laws of Distribution of Energy and their Limitations. (With an Appendix by Prof. Ludwig Boltzmann),” Report of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Oxford in August 1894 (London: John Murray, 1894), 64-106.

  19. Ludwig Boltzmann, Appendix C, “On the Application of the Deterimantal Relation to the Kinetic Theory of Polyatomic Gases,” ibid., pp. 102-106; reprinted in Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. III. Band. 1882-1905, ed. Fritz Hasenöhrl (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1909; reprinted New York: Chelsea, 1968), pp. 520-525.

  20. “The British Association,” Nature 50 (1894), 369.

  21. Boltzmann to Ostwald, June 1, 1895, in Walter Höflechner, ed., Ludwig Boltzmann: Leben und Briefe. Teil II. Briefe von und an Ludwig Boltzmann (Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1994), pp. 237-238.

  22. G.H. Bryan “The Kinetic Theory of Gases,” Nature 51 (1894) 152.

  23. G.H. Bryan and Ludwig Boltzmann, “On the Mechanical Analogue of Thermal Equilibrium between Bodies in Contact,” Proceedings of the Physical Society of London 13 (1894), 485-493; reprinted in German in Boltzmann, Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (ref. 19), pp. 510-519.

  24. Ludwig Boltzmann, “On Maxwell’s Method of deriving the Equations of Hydrodynamics from the Kinetic Theory of Gases,” Report of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting of the British Association (ref. 18), p. 579; reprinted in Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (ref. 19), pp. 526-527.

  25. Bryan, “The Kinetic Theory of Gases” (ref. 22), p. 152.

  26. G.H. Bryan, “Prof. Boltzmann and the Kinetic Theory of Gases,” Nature 51 (1894), 31.

  27. George Jaffé, “Recollections of Three Great Laboratories,” Journal of Chemical Education 29 (1952), 230-238, on 235.

  28. “The British Association,” Nature 50 (1894), 400-401, on 400.

  29. Boltzmann, quoted in Bryan, “Prof. Ludwig Boltzmann” (ref. 16), p. 570.

  30. Oliver Lodge, “Experiments illustrating Clerk Maxwell’s Theory of Light,” Report of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting (ref. 18), pp. 582, 814; see also “Physics at the British Association,” Nature 50 (1894), 406-409, on 408, and 463.

  31. Lord Rayleigh and W. Ramsay, “Preliminary account of a New Gaseous Constituent of Air,” Report of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting (ref. 18), p. 614; see also “The British Association,” Nature 50 (1894), 369-370, and “Chemistry at the British Association,” ibid., 409-411, on 410.

  32. S.P. Langley, “On recent Researches on the Infra-Red Spectrum,” Report of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting (ref. 18), pp. 465-474 (with 3 foldout plates); see also “Physics at the British Association” (ref. 30), p. 407.

  33. “A Discussion on Flight,” Report of the Sixty-Fourth Meeting (ref. 18), p. 557.

  34. “Science in the Magazines,” Nature 50 (1894), 489; see also G.H. Bryan, “Artificial Flight,” Science Progress 6 (1897), 531-553, on 540.

  35. Langley, Experiments in Aerodynamics (ref. 3).

  36. Lord Kelvin, “Towards the Efficiency of Sails, Windmills, Screw-Propellers in Water and Air, and Aeroplanes,” Nature 50 (1894), 425-426.

  37. L. Boltzmann, “Ueber Luftschifffahrt,” Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte. Erster Theil. Die allgemeinen Sitzungen (1894), 89-96; reprinted in Populäre Schriften (Leipzig: J.A. Barth, 1905), pp. 81-91.

  38. Boltzmann to Lilienthal, August to early September 1894, in Höflechner, Boltzmann (ref. 21), letter 377 [summary], p. 220.

  39. Dahmen, “Boltzmann and the Art of Flying” (ref. 2), pp. 248-250.

  40. “Notes,” Nature 50 (August 16, 1894), 393.

  41. Lilienthal to FitzGerald, February 4, 1895, G.F. FitzGerald Correspondence, Royal Dublin Society Archive.

  42. Octave Chanute, Progress in Flying Machines (New York: American Engineer and Railroad Journal, 1894).

  43. Ibid., p. 257.

  44. For a complete list, see Höflechner, Boltzmann (ref. 21). Teil I. Ludwig Boltzmann. Dokumentation eines Professorenlebens, pp. 137-138.

  45. Edwd. P. Culverwell, “Dr. Watson’s Proof of Boltzmann’s Theorem on Permanence of Distributions,” Nature 50 (1894), 617.

  46. S.H. Burbury, “Boltzmann’s Minimum Function,” Nature 51 (1894), 78.

  47. G.H. Bryan, “The Kinetic Theory of Gases,” Nature 51 (1894), 175-176.

  48. Ludwig Boltzmann, “On Certain Questions of the Theory of Gases,” Nature 51 (1895), 413-415; idem, “Professor Boltzmann’s Letter on the Kinetic Theory of Gases,” ibid., 581; idem, “On the Minimum Theorem in the Theory of Gases,” ibid. 52 (1895), 221; reprinted in Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (ref. 19), pp. 535-544, 545, 546.

  49. Edwd. P. Culverwell, “Boltzmann’s Minimum Theorem,” Nature 52 (1895), 149.

  50. G.H. Bryan, “On the Sailing Flight of Birds,” Report of the Sixty-Sixth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Liverpool in September 1896 (London: John Murray, 1896), pp. 726-731.

  51. Lilienthal, Der Vogelflug (ref. 1).

  52. C. Runge, “The Death of Lilienthal,” Nature 54 (September 3, 1896), 413-414, on 414; see also F.W. Lanchester, Aerodonetics (London: A. Constable and Co., 1908), p. 148.

  53. Private communication, Professor Boye Ahlborn, University of British Columbia, grandson of Professor Friedrich Ahlborn, August 6, 2011.

  54. Höflechner, Boltzmann. Teil II (ref. 21), pp. 257-258.

  55. Reported in Nature 53 (1896), 420.

  56. Bryan, “Artificial Flight” (ref. 34).

  57. Fr. Ahlborn, “Über die Stabilität der Flugapparate,” Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften 15 (1897), 1-51.

  58. Ludwig Boltzmann, Vorlesungen über Gastheorie. I. Theil. Theorie der Gas mit einatomigen Molekülen, deren Dimensionen gegen die mittlere Weglänge verschwinden (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1894); II. Theil. Theorie van der Waals’; Gase mit zusammengesetzten Molekülen; Gasdissociation; Schlussbemerkungen (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1898).

  59. Wolfgang L. Reiter, “Ludwig Boltzmann: A Life of Passion,” Phys. in Perspec. 9 (2007), 357-374, especially 365-366.

  60. G.H. Bryan, “Allgemeine Grundlegung der Thermodynamik,” in A. Sommerfeld, ed., Encyklopädie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen. Fünfter Band. Erster Teil. Physik (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1903), pp. 71-160.

  61. Bryan to Sommerfeld, November 29, 1899, Sommerfeld Correspondence, American Philosophical Society Archive, Philadelphia.

  62. G.H.B[ryan], “History and Progress of Aerial Locomotion,” Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 16 (1899-1901), 487-492.

  63. E. Stuart Bruce, “Mechanical Flight,” Flight 1, No. 7-8 (February 13, 20, 1909), 97-98, 108-109, on 109. The paper Bryan read at the December 3, 1903, meeting was published as G.H. Bryan and W.E. Williams, “The Longitudinal Stability of Aëroplane Gliders,” The Aëronautical Journal 8 (January 1904), 12-19 (with 1 foldout plate).

  64. Wilbur Wright, “Some Aeronautical Experiments,” website <http://www.wright-house.com/wright-brothers/Aeronautical.html>.

  65. Ibid., p. 8 (of 15).

  66. Bryan, “Allgemeine Grundlegung der Thermodynamik” (ref. 60).

  67. Harold Hilton, Mathematical Crystallography and the Theory of Groups and Movements (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1903).

  68. E.J. Routh, Treatise on the Stability of a Given State of Motion (London: Macmillan, 1877).

  69. Bryan and Williams, “Longitudinal Stability” (ref. 6), p. 114.

  70. Ibid., p. 100.

  71. Report of the Seventy-Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Southport in September 1903 (London: John Murray, 1904).

  72. G.H. B[ryan], “Ludwig Boltzmann,” Obituary Notices of Fellows, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lon. [A] 80 (1908), xi-xiii, on xiii.

  73. G.H. Bryan, “The Law of Degradation of Energy as the fundamental principle of thermodynamics,” in Stefan Meyer, ed., Festschrift Ludwig Boltzmann gewidmet zum sechzigsten Geburtstage 20. Februar 1904 (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth), pp. 123-136.

  74. Max Planck, “Über die mechanische Bedeutung der Temperatur und der Entropie,” ibid., pp. 113-122.

  75. A.E., “[Review of] G.H. Bryan. Das Gesetz von der Entwertung der Energie als Fundamentalprinzip der Thermodynamik,” Beiblätter zu den Annalen der Physik 29 (1905), 237; reprinted in John Stachel, ed., The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Vol. 2. The Swiss Years: Writings, 1900-1909 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), Doc. 9, p. 121; translated by Anna Beck (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), Doc. 9, p. 80.

  76. Ludwig Boltzmann, “The Relations of Applied Mathematics,” in Howard J. Rogers, ed., Congress of Arts and Science Universal Exposition, St. Louis, 1904. Vol. IV. Physics Chemistry Astronomy Sciences of the Earth (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906), pp. 591-603; reprinted in Katherine R. Sopka, ed., Physics for a New Century: Papers Presented at the 1904 St. Louis Congress (New York: Tomash Publishers and American Institute of Physics, 1986), pp. 267-279.

  77. G.H. Bryan, “Progress in Aërial Navigation,” Nature 71 (1905), 463-465, on 463, 465.

  78. G.H. Bryan, Thermodynamics: An Introductory Treatise dealing mainly with First Principles and Their Direct Applications (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, New York: E. Steichert & Co., and London: David Nutt, 1907).

  79. Reiter, “Ludwig Boltzmann” (ref. 59), pp. 367-368.

  80. Ibid., pp. 368-369.

  81. Bryan, “Prof. Ludwig Boltzmann” (ref. 16).

  82. B[ryan], “Ludwig Boltzmann” (ref. 72).

  83. Ibid., p. xiii.

  84. G.H. Bryan, “The Correlation of the Teaching of Mathematics and Science” [Report of a Conference held by The Mathematical Association in Conjunction with the Federated Associations of London Non-Primary Teachers], The Mathematical Gazette 5 (1909), 1-40, on 1.

  85. Bryan, Stability in Aviation (ref. 5), p. vi.

  86. Ibid., p. 8.

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Acknowledgments

I am particularly indebted to Roger H. Stuewer for his many helpful suggestions and for providing a number of photographs and additional references. I am grateful for the access I have been given by the Archives Section of the University Library at Bangor to records of the Minutes of the Court of Governors; to Frank James of the Royal Institution for sending me a copy of Bryan’s 1901 paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution; to Michael Miller, Archives Division of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, for providing me with copies of the Bryan-Sommerfeld correspondence; to the Royal Dublin Society for access to their Archive of George Francis FitzGerald’s correspondence; to Ms. Catriona Mulcahy for providing me with information on Edgar Henry Harper, and to Professor Boye Ahlborn, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, for providing me with details of early work on the stability of flight by his grandfather, Professor Friedrich Ahlborn.

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    T. James M. Boyd

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T. James M. Boyd is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Essex, United Kingdom. From 1968 to 1990 he held the Chair in Applied Mathematics at the University of Wales at Bangor, fifth in the line of succession to George Hartley Bryan.

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Boyd, T.J.M. George Hartley Bryan, Ludwig Boltzmann, and the Stability of Flight. Phys. Perspect. 14, 4–32 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-011-0077-2

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