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STANLEY CORRSIN
1920-1986
BY HANS W. LIEPMANN
STANLEY CORRSIN Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of
Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, cried of cancer
on June 2, 1986. With his death the community of research-
ers in and practitioners of fluid physics and fluid engineering
lost one of its outstanding contributors. Many of us, includ-
ing myself, lost a close friend.
Dr. Corrsin was born on April 3, 1920, in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He obtained a B.S. from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1940 and entered the California Institute of
Technology as a graduate student, finishing his M.S. in 1942
and his Ph.D. in ~ 947.
The bulk of his research for the Ph.D. was actually finished
in late 1943, but Corrsin came to Caltech at a time when a
technologically unprepared United States facet! the prospect
of war and a modern air force had to be built in the shortest
possible time. A deeper understanding of some of the fun-
damental problems of fluid mechanics had to be acquired by
a small number of competent people to help in the design of
advanced aircraft. Gifted graduate students thus were drawn
immediately into research and development work, stretching
their abilities and stamina to the limit.
In the five years between receiving his M.S. and Ph.D.,
Corrsin not only finished a thesis on the flow of a turbulent
jet, which became a classic in the field, but also participated
95
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
in many other research and testing projects in progress at
the time, including work on what was then a secret project to
develop a laminar airfoil. He also served as an instructor in
aeronautics. His outstanding writing ability he had at one
time consiclered becoming a professional writer was quite
evident and a great help to him, even at this early stage in his
career.
When Corrsin left Caltech in 1947 to become an assistant
professor at the Johns Hopkins University, he was already an
acknowledgecl expert in turbulence research. The complex,
fascinating field! of turbulence in all of its manifestations re-
mainect his primary interest throughout his life, just as Johns
Hopkins remained his permanent academic home.
Corrsin advanced to the rank of associate professor of
aeronautics in 1951 and then was named professor of me-
chanical engineering and chairman of the Mechanical En-
gineering Department in 1955. In line with changes in the
departmental structure at Johns Hopkins, his affiliation
changer! twice: first to mechanics and materials science in
1960 ant! finally to chemical engineering in 1980. In 198~ he
became the first Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of En-
gineering ant! held a concurrent professorship in biomedical
engineering at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Corrsin contributed successfully to experimental and theo-
retical research. He strove for clarity of aim and precision in
execution in both theory ant! experiment, and he was willing
and able to acquire the necessary tools to deal with any phys-
ical or applied problem of interest to him. For example,
Corrsin was one of the very few researchers who familiarizer!
themselves with diagram techniques, which at one time
seemed to hold promise in attempts to clarify the sequence
of nonlinear coupling terms in wavenumber space. His quest
for clarity and precision had one negative result: He never
finisher! the book he planner! on fluict mechanics, which was
to have been based on his lecture notes. ~ am given to under-
stand, however, that these notes in the hancis of his pupils
have contributes! much to the fluid] mechanics courses in sev-
eral university curricula.
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STANLEY CORRSIN
97
Short articles on dimensional analysis, the derivation of
Eulers equations, and the interpretation of the viscous terms
in the turbulent energy equation are further samples of
Corrsin's serious concern for a correct simplicity in the teach-
ing of funclamentals. He worked very hard anct wrote easily.
His hundred or so publications couIct easily have been
doubled but for his pronounced self-criticism and urge for
perfection. Corrsin's contribution to the Handbuch der Physik
and to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Physics on Experimentation
in Turbulence Research is further proof of his more pedagogi-
cal interests, which culminated in a set of some twenty-five
cloctoral theses that were carried through under his guid-
ance. Many of his Ph.D. students by now have macle their
own mark in various aspects of fluid] mechanics.
Corrsin contributed a number of lasting ideas and re-
sults for example, as his first publishect paper shows, he
recognized the so-called intermittence in turbulence as early
as 1943. The first serious experimental verification of the
concept of local isotropy is credited to him. The still lively
discussions concerning the validity of gradient transport in
turbulent shear flows collie be much improved if the partic-
ipants were to take the time to read Corrsin's publications
clearing with the subject.
He also contributes! a number of nontrivial applications of
stochastic theory to problems suggested by the turbulence
field. These contributions includect a stucly conducted with
I. B. Morton of the statistical properties of the Duping oscil-
lator under random forcing, comparing various closure pro-
posals for turbulence with the results from a Fokker-Planck
solution.
In later years, Corrsin cleveloped an interest in medical
and biological problems and brought his expertise with fluid
flow to bear on a variety of subjects such as the motion of the
precorneal fluid film of the eye and maternal blooct flow in
the placenta. His long-standing interest and competence in
aerodynamics were applied to problems of bird flight.
Premedical students at Johns Hopkins had the opportunity
to take his rather unusual course "Animal Motion," which
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
offerect a rare chance to learn something about real applied
mechanics.
His list of fellowships and honors reflects the high esteem
in which his contributions are held both here ant! abroad.
He was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Amer-
ican Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was named Docteur Hon-
oris Cause of the University of Lyon and was elected to mem-
bership in the National Academy of Engineering in 1980. He
also received the 1983 Fluid Dynamics Prize of the American
Physical Society.
In a field of long standing such as fluid mechanics a field
that is crucial for a host of engineering applications, but that
still contains unresolved fundamental physics problems-
spectacular breakthroughs are virtually nonexistent. Pro-
gress proceeds on a wide front in larger or smaller steps.
Corrsin has contributed to the fields of aeronautical, chemi-
cal, and mechanical engineering as well as to the biological
anc! physical sciences. In some of these steps, he will be re-
memberect as an original and productive researcher. The
people who knew him personally will remember Stan as an
articulate, critical, but very warm personality with an un-
usually pleasant sense of humor.
Corrsin is survived by his wife Barbara (nee Dagett) and
two children, Nancy Eliot ant] Stephen Davis.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
halley smoot
