Mathematical Physics and Technical Mechanics

For the engineer and the physicist are acquainted with exactly the same facts, but the manner in which they approach their subjects is quite different.

philipp frank, Relativity: A Richer Truth (1951)1

That it is Applied Physics is to me the most inspiring definition of engineering; and if this be true for engineering in general, as I think it is, especially true is it of aeronautics. h. e. wimperis, “The Relationship of Physics to Aeronautical Research" (1926)2

The circulation theory of lift was developed by Lanchester, who was an en­gineer. The reasons advanced against it were proposed by men such as G. I. Taylor who were not engineers but who worked in the British, and particularly the Cambridge, tradition of mathematical physics. This is a clue that needs to be followed up. If the objections were the expressions of a disciplinary standpoint, located at a specific time and place, then perhaps the resistance to the circulatory theory would be explicable as a clash of cultures, institutions, and practices. Such an explanation would not imply any devaluation of the reasons that were advanced against the circulatory theory. It would not be premised on the assumption that these reasons were not the real reasons for the resistance. On the contrary, the intention would be to take the objections against the theory in full seriousness and to probe further into them. To do this it is necessary to understand the sources of their credibility and why the reasons were deployed in precisely the way that they were. I shall now begin that process. By the end of the chapter I shall be in a position to outline a theory that could explain the negative character of the British response to Lanchester’s theory.