Designed to familiarize students with theories and analytical tools useful for studying research literature, this course is a survey of fluid mechanical problems in the water environment. Because of the inherent nonlinearities in the governing equations, we shall emphasize the art of making analytical approximations not only for facilitating calculations but also for gaining deeper physical insight. The importance of scales will be discussed throughout the course in lectures and homeworks. Mathematical techniques beyond the usual preparation of first-year graduate students will be introduced as a part of the course. Topics vary from year to year.

Designed to familiarize students with theories and analytical tools useful for studying research literature, this course is a survey of fluid mechanical problems in the water environment. Because of the inherent nonlinearities in the governing equations, we shall emphasize the art of making analytical approximations not only for facilitating calculations but also for gaining deeper physical insight. The importance of scales will be discussed throughout the course in lectures and homeworks. Mathematical techniques beyond the usual preparation of first-year graduate students will be introduced as a part of the course. Topics vary from year to year.

This book is written for anybody who is curious about nature and motion. Curiosity about how people, animals, things, images and space move leads to many adventures. This volume presents the best of them in the domain of everyday life.

Carefully observing everyday motion allows us to deduce six essential statements: everyday motion is continuous, conserved, relative, reversible, mirror-invariant – and lazy. Yes, nature is indeed lazy: in every motion, it minimizes change. This text explores how these six results are deduced and how they fit with all those observations that seem to contradict them. In the structure of modern physics, shown in Figure 1, the results on everyday motion form the major part of the starting point at the bottom. The present volume is the first of a six-volume overview of physics. It resulted from a threefold aim I have pursued since 1990: to present motion in a way that is simple, up to date and captivating.

In order to be simple, the text focuses on concepts, while keeping mathematics to the necessary minimum. Understanding the concepts of physics is given precedence over using formulae in calculations. The whole text is within the reach of an undergraduate.

In order to be up to date, the text is enriched by the many gems – both theoretical and empirical – that are scattered throughout the scientific literature.

In order to be captivating, the text tries to startle the reader as much as possible. Reading a book on general physics should be like going to a magic show. We watch, we are astonished, we do not believe our eyes, we think, and finally we understand the trick. When we look at nature, we often have the same experience. Indeed, every page presents at least one surprise or provocation for the reader to think about. Numerous interesting challenges are proposed.

The motto of the text, die Menschen stärken, die Sachen klären, a famous statement by Hartmut von Hentig on pedagogy, translates as: ‘To fortify people, to clarify things.’ Clarifying things – and adhering only to the truth – requires courage, as changing the habits of thought produces fear, often hidden by anger. But by overcoming our fears we grow in strength. And we experience intense and beautiful emotions. All great adventures in life allow this, and exploring motion is one of them. Enjoy it!

This course extends fluid mechanic concepts from Unified Engineering to the aerodynamic performance of wings and bodies in sub/supersonic regimes. 16.100 generally has four components: subsonic potential flows, including source/vortex panel methods; viscous flows, including laminar and turbulent boundary layers; aerodynamics of airfoils and wings, including thin airfoil theory, lifting line theory, and panel method/interacting boundary layer methods; and supersonic and hypersonic airfoil theory. Course material varies each year depending upon the focus of the design problem.

This seminar looks at current theories on happiness and positive psychology as well as practical implications of those theories for our own lives. It explores the concept of happiness, different cultural definitions of happiness, and the connection between happiness, optimism, and meaning. Also explored are practical strategies for creating more opportunities for happiness in our lives and for learning how to deal more effectively with sources of unhappiness.
This seminar is part of the Experimental Study Group at MIT.

Bernoulli's principle relates the pressure of a fluid to its elevation and its speed. Bernoulli's equation can be used to approximate these parameters in water, air or any fluid that has very low viscosity. Students learn about the relationships between the components of the Bernoulli equation through real-life engineering examples and practice problems.

Students construct three-dimensional models of water catchment basins using everyday objects to form hills, mountains, valleys and water sources. They experiment to see where rain travels and collects, and survey water pathways to see how they can be altered by natural and human activities. Students discuss how engineers design structures that impact water collection, as well as systems that clean and distribute water.

This textbook on Coastal Dynamics focuses on the interrelation between physical wave, flow and sediment transport phenomena and the resulting morphodynamics of a wide variety of coastal systems. The textbook is unique in that it explicitly connects the dynamics of open coasts and tidal basins; not only is the interaction between open coasts and tidal basins of basic importance for the evolution of most coastal systems, but describing the similarities between their physical processes is highly instructive as well. This textbook emphasizes these similarities to the benefit of understanding shared processes such as nonlinearities in flow and sediment transport. Some prior knowledge with respect to the dynamics of flow, waves and sediment transport is recommended.

Students explore the densities and viscosities of fluids as they create a colorful 'rainbow' using household liquids. While letting the fluids in the rainbow settle, students conduct 'The Great Viscosity Race,' another short experiment that illustrates the difference between viscosity and density. Later, students record the density rainbow with sketches and/or photography.

This feature, adapted from Interactive NOVA: "Earth," follows the path of energy as it is transferred via the food chain from one type of organism to another.

This course covers: Fundamental concepts; fluid statics; fluid dynamics; Bernoulli's equation; control-volume analysis; basic flow equations of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy; differential analysis; potential flow; viscous incompressible flow.

This subject provides an introduction to fluid mechanics. Students are introduced to and become familiar with all relevant physical properties and fundamental laws governing the behavior of fluids and learn how to solve a variety of problems of interest to civil and environmental engineers. While there is a chance to put skills from calculus and differential equations to use in this subject, the emphasis is on physical understanding of why a fluid behaves the way it does. The aim is to make the students think as a fluid. In addition to relating a working knowledge of fluid mechanics, the subject prepares students for higher-level subjects in fluid dynamics.

Students discover fluid dynamics related to buoyancy through experimentation and optional photography. Using one set of fluids, they make light fluids rise through denser fluids. Using another set, they make dense fluids sink through a lighter fluid. In both cases, they see and record beautiful fluid motion. Activities are also suitable as class demonstrations. The natural beauty of fluid flow opens the door to seeing the beauty of physics in general.

This class provides students with an introduction to principal concepts and methods of fluid mechanics. Topics covered in the course include pressure, hydrostatics, and buoyancy; open systems and control volume analysis; mass conservation and momentum conservation for moving fluids; viscous fluid flows, flow through pipes; dimensional analysis; boundary layers, and lift and drag on objects. Students will work to formulate the models necessary to study, analyze, and design fluid systems through the application of these concepts, and to develop the problem-solving skills essential to good engineering practice of fluid mechanics in practical applications.

This book deals with an introduction to the flow of compressible substances (gases). The main difference between compressible flow and almost incompressible flow is not the fact that compressibility has to be considered. Rather, the difference is in two phenomena that do not exist in incompressible flow. The first phenomenon is the very sharp discontinuity (jump) in the flow in properties. The second phenomenon is the choking of the flow. Choking is when downstream variations don't effect the flow. Though choking occurs in certain pipe flows in astronomy, there also are situations of choking in general (external) flow.

Students learn about energy flow in food webs, including the roles of the sun, producers, consumers and decomposers in the energy cycle. They model a food web and create diagrams of food webs using their own drawings and/or images from nature or wildlife magazines. Students investigate the links between the sun, plants and animals, building their understanding of the web of nutrient dependency and energy transfer.

Students learn about water poverty and how water engineers can develop appropriate solutions to a problem that is plaguing nearly a sixth of the world's population. Students follow the engineering design process to design a gravity-fed water system. They choose between different system parameters such as pipe sizes, elevation differentials between entry and exit pipes, pipe lengths and tube locations to find a design that provides the maximum flow and minimum water turbidity (cloudiness) at the point of use. In this activity, students play the role of water engineers by designing and building model gravity-fed water systems, learning the key elements necessary for viable projects that help improve the lives people in developing communities.

Students' eyes are opened to the value of creative, expressive and succinct visual presentation of data, findings and concepts. Student pairs design, redesign and perform simple experiments to test the differences in thermal conductivity (heat flow) through different media (foil and thin steel). Then students create visual diagrams of their findings that can be understood by anyone with little background on the subject, applying their newly learned art vocabulary and concepts to clearly communicate their results. The principles of visual design include contrast, alignment, repetition and proximity; the elements of visual design include an awareness of the use of lines, color, texture, shape, size, value and space. If students already have data available from other experiments, have them jump right into the diagram creation and critique portions of the activity.

While learning about volcanoes, magma and lava flows, students learn about the properties of liquid movement, coming to understand viscosity and other factors that increase and decrease liquid flow. They also learn about lava composition and its risk to human settlements.

This course, is designed to be a descriptive and analytical overview of water organs, availability, location and flow. It will be examined in the light of problems, possibilities and policy and consider historical perspectives.