{"title":"The efflux problem: how hydraulics became divorced from hydrodynamics","authors":"Michael Eckert","doi":"10.1007/s00407-023-00320-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The efflux problem deals with the outflow of water through an orifice in a vessel, the flow over the crest of a weir and some other ways of discharge. The difficulties to account for such fluid motions in terms of a mathematical theory made it a notorious problem throughout the history of hydraulics and hydrodynamics. The treatment of the efflux problem, therefore, reflects the diverging routes along which hydraulics became an engineering science and hydrodynamics a theoretical science out of touch with applications. By the twentieth century, the presentation of the efflux problem in textbooks on hydraulics had almost nothing in common with that in textbooks on hydrodynamics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":50982,"journal":{"name":"Archive for History of Exact Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00407-023-00320-2.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Archive for History of Exact Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00407-023-00320-2","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The efflux problem deals with the outflow of water through an orifice in a vessel, the flow over the crest of a weir and some other ways of discharge. The difficulties to account for such fluid motions in terms of a mathematical theory made it a notorious problem throughout the history of hydraulics and hydrodynamics. The treatment of the efflux problem, therefore, reflects the diverging routes along which hydraulics became an engineering science and hydrodynamics a theoretical science out of touch with applications. By the twentieth century, the presentation of the efflux problem in textbooks on hydraulics had almost nothing in common with that in textbooks on hydrodynamics.
期刊介绍:
The Archive for History of Exact Sciences casts light upon the conceptual groundwork of the sciences by analyzing the historical course of rigorous quantitative thought and the precise theory of nature in the fields of mathematics, physics, technical chemistry, computer science, astronomy, and the biological sciences, embracing as well their connections to experiment. This journal nourishes historical research meeting the standards of the mathematical sciences. Its aim is to give rapid and full publication to writings of exceptional depth, scope, and permanence.