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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
As time passes more and more knowledge of the flow of fluids past bodies accumulates and of this increase some becomes applied to the problems of the day. Boundary layer theory is being applied at the present time to the problem of the degree of polish which should be given to a wing in order to reduce its profile drag to a minimum. Tests in the compressed air tunnel at the National Physical Laboratory and in flight at Cambridge and Farnborough have recently been directed to this point and give quantitative assurance of the correctness of theory. In what follows, a survey is made of a group of theorems relating to the resistance of various bodies such as aerofoils and flat plates and more generally to streamline forms. The theorems are partly physical and partly mathematical and approximations are numerous and of very different degrees of validity.
* The sign given to ψ is arbitrary and there is a present tendency to use 1.4 instead of the convention adopted by Lamb. The reason is a desire to conform to Continental usage and its extensive literature.
* Proc. Roy. Soc, A, Vol. 85 (1911).Google Scholar
† Proc. Roy. Soc, (1920).
* Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, January, 1934. Th. von Kármán.
* See, for instance, the treatment of the laminar layer on a flat plate by Busemann: Zeits angew Math. Mech., Vol. 15, p. 23, 1935.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
† Some of this work has now been described by Frössel: Forschung, Vol. 7, p. 75; March, 1936.
