| This dissertation will deal with the collaboration between scientists and engineers. It will deal specifically with the early development of aeronautical engineering, tracing these traditions of aeronautical research: British stability research and German aerodynamic research. In tracing their developments, I will emphasize the function of intermediaries, or translators, between scientific theory and engineering practice, and pay special attention to the use of graphs by aeronautical engineers.;The last three chapters will deal with the development of aerodynamic theory in Germany and Britain, and with the introduction of Ludwig Prandtl's aerodynamic theory into the American and British aeronautical communities. In tracing the history of these introductions, I will contrast the performance of Max Munk and Hermann Glauert as intermediaries. American aeronautical leaders brought Munk to the United States so that he could direct American aeronautical research. However, he could not collaborate or even communicate with American engineers, partly because of their different research backgrounds. Glauert, on the other hand, made efforts to work as an intermediary between German aerodynamicists and British investigators. Consequently, British engineers could understand and use some results of German aerodynamic theory, and British scientists were able to attain a deeper understanding of this theory developed by Ludwig Prandtl at Gottingen University. In conclusion, I will suggest that the British version of German aerodynamics was reintroduced to American engineers in the 1930s.;The first two chapters will discuss the investigation of British scientists and engineers into airplane stability and the introduction of this British stability research into the American aeronautical community. An applied mathematician George Bryan worked separately from engineers to establish a general theory of aeronautical stability. Bryan's mathematical theory, as produced, could not be used by aircraft designers, however. Leonard Bairstow at the National Physical Laboratory translated Bryan's theory into an experimental program and presented the results in graphic form so that it could be used by aircraft designers. Bairstow also criticized Bryan's other mathematical theory from the viewpoint of engineers. For this work, Bairstow was termed a "middleman" by his contemporaries. |
