The Dawn of Fluid Dynamics: A Discipline Between Science and Technology

Michael Eckert studied physics at the Technical University Munich and received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University Bayreuth in 1979. He dedicated his subsequent career to the history of physics--with ramifications in scientific journalism and schoolbook editing. Since 1981 he was engaged in several projects on the history of modern physics at the Deutsches Museum, Munich. He authored and co-authored books and articles on such diverse specialties as the history of soild state physics and plasma physics. Recently he was directing a project on the famous theoretical physicist Arnold Sommerfeld which resulted in a two-volume edition of Sommerfeld's scientic correspondence (2000 and 2004). His present work on the history of fluid dynamics is part of a research group at the Deutsches Museum, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, with the focus on science-technology-interactions in the 20th century.