John R. Womersley
Encyclopedia
John Ronald Womersley was a British
mathematician
who made important contributions to textiles, computing and arterial mechanics . He studied mathematics at Imperial College of Science and Technology and subsequently worked at the Shirley Institute
(British Cotton Industry Research Institute) Manchester. During World War II he was head of the Ministry of Supply Advisory Service on Statistical Methods. At the end of the war he was appointed superintendent of the Mathematics Division of the National Physical Laboratory
. He coined the name Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) for the early electronic computer developed there and recruited Alan Turing
to work on it . Nowadays he is principally remembered for his contribution to arterial fluid dynamics and the eponymous Womersley number
, a dimensionless parameter expression the relation of the frequency of pulsatile flow to viscosity.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
who made important contributions to textiles, computing and arterial mechanics . He studied mathematics at Imperial College of Science and Technology and subsequently worked at the Shirley Institute
Shirley Institute
The Shirley Institute was established in 1920 as the British Cotton Industry Research Association at The Towers in Didsbury, Manchester as a research centre dedicated to cotton production technologies...
(British Cotton Industry Research Institute) Manchester. During World War II he was head of the Ministry of Supply Advisory Service on Statistical Methods. At the end of the war he was appointed superintendent of the Mathematics Division of the National Physical Laboratory
National Physical Laboratory, UK
The National Physical Laboratory is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington, London, England. It is the largest applied physics organisation in the UK.-Description:...
. He coined the name Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) for the early electronic computer developed there and recruited Alan Turing
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...
to work on it . Nowadays he is principally remembered for his contribution to arterial fluid dynamics and the eponymous Womersley number
Womersley number
The Womersley number is a dimensionless number in biofluid mechanics. It is a dimensionless expression of the pulsatile flow frequency in relation to viscous effects. It is named after John R. Womersley . The Womersley number is important in keeping dynamic similarity when scaling an experiment. An...
, a dimensionless parameter expression the relation of the frequency of pulsatile flow to viscosity.
Publications
- JR Womersley The application of differential geometry to the study of the deformation of cloth under stress, Shirley Institute Memoirs, 1937, 16 No. 1.
- D. R. Hartree and J. R. Womersley, A method for the numerical or mechanical solution of certain types of partial differential equations, Proc. Royal Soc. 1937, A161 , 353-366.
- JR Womersley Scientific computing in Great Britain, Math. Tables and Aids to Computation, 1946, 2 , 110-117.
- JR Womersley Oscillatory motion of a viscous liquid in a thin-walled elastic tube. I. The linear approximation for long waves, Phil. Mag., 1955 46 , 199-221.