John Scott Russell
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John Scott Russell (May 9, 1808, Glasgow - 8 June 1882) was a Scottish naval engineer who built The Great Eastern in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and made the discovery that gave birth to the modern study of solitons. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE). He was probably elected as FRSE in 1837 according to the website of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was also elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) of London in 1849, as seen in Emmerson's book and also in his obituary published in the Proceedings of Royal Society (London), vol. 34 (1882-1883), pp. xv-xvii.
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[edit] Early life
His father was David Russell and his mother was Agnes Clark Scott. His middle name "Scott" was actually the maiden family name of his mother. He was born in a village close to Glasgow of Scotland in 1808. He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1825, and moved hi
[edit] The wave of translation
In 1834, while conducting experiments to determine the most efficient design for canal boats, he discovered a phenomenon that he described as the wave of translation. In fluid dynamics the wave is now called a Russell solitary wave or soliton. The discovery is described here in his own words:
"I was observing the motion of a boat which was rapidly drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses, when the boat suddenly stopped - not so the mass of water in the channel which it had put in motion; it accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation, then suddenly leaving it behind, rolled forward with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth and well-defined heap of water, which continued its course along the channel apparently without change of form or diminution of speed. I followed it on horseback, and overtook it still rolling on at a rate of some eight or nine miles an hour, preserving its original figure some thirty feet long and a foot to a foot and a half in height. Its height gradually diminished, and after a chase of one or two miles I lost it in the windings of the channel. Such, in the month of August 1834, was my first chance interview with that singular and beautiful phenomenon which I have called the Wave of Translation".
(Note: This passage has been repeated in many papers and books on soliton theory.)
(Note: "Translation" here means that there is real mass transport such that water can be transported from one end of the canal to the other end by this "Wave of Translation".)
- J. Scott Russell. Report on waves, Fourteenth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1844.
Russell spent some time making practical and theoretical investigations of these waves, he built wave tanks at his home and noticed some key properties:
- The waves are stable, and can travel over very large distances (normal waves would tend to either flatten out, or steepen and topple over)
- The speed depends on the size of the wave, and its width on the depth of water.
- Unlike normal waves they'll never merge - so a small wave is overtaken by a large one, rather than the two combining.
- If a wave is too big for the depth of water, it splits into two, one big and one small.
Russell's experimental work seemed at contrast with the Newton and Bernoulli's theories of hydrodynamics. George Biddell Airy and George Gabriel Stokes had difficulty to accept Russell's experimental observation. His contemporaries spent some time attempting to extend the theory but it would take until 1895 before Diederik Korteweg and Gustav de Vries provided the theoretical explanation (D.J. Korteweg and G. de Vries; On the Change of Form of Long Waves advancing in a Rectangular Canal and on a New Type of Long Stationary Waves; Philosophical Magazine, 5th series, 39, 1895, pp. 422--443).
(Note: Lord Rayleigh published a paper in Philosophical Magazine in 1876 to support John Scott Russell's experimental observation with his mathematical theory. In his 1876 paper, Lord Rayleigh mentioned Russell's name and also admitted that the first theoretical treatment was by Joseph Valentin Boussinesq in 1871. Joseph Boussinesq mentioned Russell's name in his 1871 paper. Korteweg and de Vries did not mention John Scott Russell's name at all in their 1895 paper but they did quote Boussinesq's paper in 1871 and Lord Rayleigh's paper in 1876. The paper by Korteweg and de Vries in 1895 was not the first theoretical treatment of this subject but it was a very important milestone in the history of the development of soliton theory. )
It was not until the 1960s and the advent of modern computers that the significance of Russell's discovery in physics, electronics, biology and especially fibre optics started to become understood, leading to the modern general theory of solitons.
[edit] Ship building
Russell moved to London in 1844, and organised the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He worked on the design of yachts, boats, barges and ships, and he became a director of a ship-building company.
He was held in high regard by Isambard Kingdom Brunel who made him a partner in his project to build the Great Eastern. At its time, this was to be the largest moveable object man had ever created. The project was plagued with a number of problems - Russell was in financial difficulties and the two men disagreed on a number of aspects of the design and construction of the ship. The Great Eastern was eventually launched in 1858.
The American engineer Alexander Lyman Holley befriended Russell and his family on his various visits to London at the time of the construction of Great Eastern. Holley also visited Russell's house in Sydenham. As a result of this, Holley, and his colleague Zerah Colburn, travelled on the maiden voyage of Great Eastern from Southampton to New York in June 1860. Russell's son, Norman, stayed with Holley at his house in Brooklyn - Norman also travelled on the mainden voyage, one voyage that John Scott Russell did not make.
Russell was a better scientist than a businessman and his reputation never fully recovered from his financial irregularities and disputes.
[edit] Miscellany
Russell made the first experimental study of the Doppler effect.
His 1844 paper has become a classical paper and is quite frequently cited in soliton-related papers even after more than one hundred years. "Report on Waves": (Report of the fourteenth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, York, September 1844 (London 1845), pp. 311-390, Plates XLVII-LVII).
He had written 2 books before his death:
1. J Russell, The Modern System of Naval Architecture (London, 1865).
2. J Russell, The Wave of Translation in the Oceans of Water, Air and Ether (London, 1885).
His second book was probably published after his death in 1882.
His obituary was published in the Proceedings of Royal Society (London), vol. 34 (1882-1883), pp. xv-xvii. It is interesting to note that in his obituary it was mentioned that John Scott Russell was a very gifted person but did not contribute papers to the Royal Society of London but to other organizations like the Royal Society of Edinburgh, British Association, etc. His great discovery regarding his solitary wave of translation was not mentioned in his obituary published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (London).
His wife was Harriette. They had a daughter, Louise, and a son, Norman.
A book was written by George Sinclair Emmerson on John Scott Russell with the title "John Scott Russell: a great Victorian engineer and naval architect", which was published in 1977. In 2005, Olivier Darrigol published a book "Worlds of Flow", which covers the history of hydrodynamics from the years before John Scott Russell and to many years after his death. Inside this book, Darrigol provided a comprehensive list of classical papers written by John Scott Russell and other scientists on hydrodynamics.
In 1995, the aqueduct which carries the Union Canal - the same canal where he observed his Wave of Translation - over the Edinburgh Bypass (A720) was named the Scott Russell Aqueduct in his memory. Also in 1995, the hydrodynamic soliton effect was reproduced near the place where John Scott Russell observed hydrodynamic solitons in 1834.
[edit] External links
- John Scott Russell and the solitary wave
- Mortimer, John. Zerah Colburn: The Spirit of Darkness Arima Publishing ISBN 1-84549-024-X
