Motion of a Solid Body in a Viscous Liquid

Abstract

THERE is perhaps no branch of mathematical physics which has made greater progress during the last thirty-five years than hydrodynamics. During this period numerous important investigations have been published upon the motion of solid bodies in a frictionless liquid, upon the theory of discontinuous motion, upon the theory of vortex motion and vortex rings, upon the motion of a liquid ellipsoid under the influence of its own attraction, and upon waves and tides. These investigations constitute an enormous increase in the knowledge possessed by the present generation compared with that of its predecessors; they have to a considerable extent exhausted the field of research in the theory of the motion of frictionless liquids; but notwithstanding the importance of the results, the elegance of the methods by which many of them have been obtained, and the skill by which the mathematical difficulties have been surmounted, all the investigations referred to possess the defect of not accurately representing the motion of liquids as they occur in nature.