Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Illustrations vii
4. Acknowledgments xi
5. Introduction: The Question to Be Answered 1
6. 1. Mathematicians versus Practical Men: The Founding of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 9
7. 2. The Air as an Ideal Fluid: Classical Hydrodynamics and the Foundations of Aerodynamics 40
8. 3. Early British Work on Lift and Drag: Rayleigh Flow versus the Aerodynamics of Intuition 79
9. 4. Lanchester’s Cyclic Theory of Lift and Its Early Reception 111
10. 5. Two Traditions: Mathematical Physics and Technical Mechanics 160
11. 6. Technische Mechanik in Action: Kutta’s Arc and the Joukowsky Wing 200
12. 7. The Finite Wing: Ludwig Prandtl and the Göttingen School 247
13. 8. “We Have Nothing to Learn from the Hun”: Realization Dawns 304
14. 9. The Laws of Prandtl and the Laws of Nature 340
15. 10. Pessimism, Positivism, and Relativism: Aerodynamic Knowledge in Context 399
16. Notes 447
17. Bibliography 497
18. Index 535