File 21 - Correspondence with V W Ekman

Ekman was a Swedish meteorologist whose work in 1905 on turbulent flow had partly anticipated Taylor's papers on eddy motion published in 1914 and 1915. Taylor had not known of Ekman's work until 'some years later' than his own papers, and Ekman for his part remained unaware of Taylor's 'independent solution of the problem of gradient currents (1915) ... which has important advantages as compared to my own previous solution'. After a meeting at a conference in Zurich, Ekman initiated correspondence with Taylor on differences in their solutions; the letters run May-November 1927, Taylor's being ms. drafts, some with tentative dating by G.K. Batchelor.