Valentin Joseph Boussinesq

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Joseph Valentin Boussinesq (born March 13, 1842 in Saint-André-de-Sangonis (Hérault département), died February 19, 1929 in Paris) was a French mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to the theory of hydrodynamics, vibration, light, and heat.

John Scott Russell experimentally observed his great solitary wave of translation in 1834 and reported it during the 1844 Meeting of the British Association for the advancement of science. Subsequently this was developed into the modern physics of solitons. In 1871, Boussinesq published the first mathematical theory to support Russell's experimental observation. In 1876, Lord Rayleigh published his mathematical theory to support Russell's experimental observation. At the end of his paper, Lord Rayleigh admitted that Boussinesq's theory came before his.^{[citation needed]}

In 1897 he published Théorie de l' écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux des liquides, a work that greatly contributed to the study of tubulence and hydrodynamics.

The word "turbulence" is owed in large part to Boussinesq. Boussinesq was intrigued by the recent work pursued in Scotland by Osborne Reynolds, who talked about "sinuous motion" and wrote a paper using the most expressive phrase "écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux". This was abridged by one of his followers to "régime turbulent", hence the word turbulence.