Stability of plane parallel flows of electrically conducting fluids

Abstract

The ordinary theory of stability of plane parallel flows is considerably simplified by a result due to Squire (2) which says that if a velocity profile becomes unstable to a small three-dimensional disturbance at a given Reynolds number, then it will become unstable to a small two-dimensional disturbance at a lower Reynolds number. This result enables us to restrict investigation of the stability to the cases of two-dimensional disturbances.