I come to think lately, sometimes, that a substantial difference between the Learning of Science and Engineering as compared to that of Literature, for example, is that a very reduced, marginal amount of scientists have read the classics, the original sources of their disciplines. Who has read Newton's Principia, Euler's Elements, Bernuilli's Hydraulica or, closer to our time, the original papers by Einstein, Fermi, Reynolds, or the lectures by Faraday or the works of all the French pioners of the Thermodynamics? I guess something similar happens in Hystory fields, because of obvious reasons: the pass of time widens and clarifies the sense of History.
Many of the classics in Science, albeit widely unknown, are rich in style and expressions, passionate; for the avid and curious minds, they are inspiring and tells a lot more than the pure contents. Many is to learn from them. I think that the exploration of these classics could be a source of entertainment as well as an opportunity for business, if I am able to find a way to convey it to the people and make them passionate about it, one way or another.
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I am having access these days to old books written by fathers of the Chemical Engineering or of any of its tributary streams of knowledge. For instance, there is a book on Fluid Mechanics, published in English in 1954, from a work in German, by Prandtl. I found rather fascinating taking a glance at the way this man saw this so-spread, so openly-manipulated topic, at a point in which he was at the end of his career. 50 years of work, since the 10-minute communication he was allowed to delivered at the 3rd International Congress of Mathematicians in Heidelberg in the summer of 1904 (Akeson). The published paper the next year, On the Motion of Fluids of Low Viscosity, was a milestone, a shaking awakening in the boundary layer theory.
It is frequent to find in the prefaces or prologues of these works a female figure, Miss or Mrs, who undertook the titanic task of typing the manuscript and, in addition, do it in such a good mood to the point of being belovedly remembered. Impressive task! The acknowledgements and gentle comments of the male authors to the gigantic abnegation of the woman is tender but, by no means, can be interpreted as a fine example of male chauvinism.
The last example I found of what I am saying here is the dedicatory set in Rutherford Aris' book Vectors, Tensors and the Basic Equations of Fluid Dynamics (1962). Aris was an Englishman, originally a mathematician (he earned the degree from the University of London when he was 16), then moved to the University of Minnesota, got into Chemical Engineering. He died in 2005 from Parkinson complications, was 76. The book is dedicated as "to Pat, whose good humor is as perfect as her typing".
Perhaps, looked at it with comtempt or distrust today, this form of male chauvinism might be alright for a time where roles were played and places were occupied in more socially-ordered societies. Even more, I am sure Pat was delightfully happy with that! I think it is sweet this way. Sometimes, we make things more complicated... And sometimes women are just as much discriminated as before. The real fight for women follows a very different path, I suspect.
Where are these wonderful men today? Where are these wonderful women?
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