Tuesday, November 12, 1996, 4:00 PM, Room 314, Altgeld Hall. Refreshments at 3:15 pm in Room 321, Altgeld Hall.
The composition of our world is predominantly fluid . The atmosphere, the oceans and the Earth's fluid core move in accordance with the laws of fluid motion. We will discuss a fundamental mathematical model for fluid motion, namely the partial differential equations known as the Euler equations. We present a sufficient condition for instability and show that "most" steady flows of an ideal fluid are unstable. We illustrate instability in particular examples including smoke rings and so called "chaotic" flows. As a further example we discuss instability due to the interaction of the outer crust with the inner fluid core of the Earth.
