RICHARDSON A R

UNITED KINGDOM (see also List of Individuals)

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21.8.1881 London/UK - 4.11.1954 Cape Town/SA

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Archibald Read Richardson began his academic career in 1903 as an engineering student at the Royal College of Science. From 1912 to 1914 he was an assistant professor of mathematics at Imperial College and left then for war service. In 1920 he became professor of aeronautical sciences at Cadet College, Cranwell, and shortly later was appointed to the chair of mathematics, University College, Swansea. He held this post for 20 years until he was compelled to resign in 1940 on account of increasing ill health, when he retired to South Africa, but continued research shortly before his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1946.

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Richardson worked mainly in algebra. However, just before and after appointment to the staff of Swansea College, he presented two outstanding works in hydromechanics. His 1921 paper relates to standing water waves, a traditional subject of English scientists. The author states in the Introduction that despite the subject matter is of great importance and has received much attention, extremely few definite solutions have been obtained for problems involving the flow of a liquid under the effect of gravity. The paper adds to the problems of the highest possible wave as previously investigated by John Henry Michell (1863-1940), transitional flow over a curved drop, flow over a corrugated channel as was investigated previously also by Joseph Boussinesq (1842-1929), sharp-crested weir flow as was later also tackled by the German Lauck at Berlin University under Richard von Mises (1883-1953), and finally unsymmetrical orifice flow as was analyzed by von Mises in 1917. All these problems involve essentially an inviscid fluid for which the potential flow theory may be successfully applied. This powerful mathematical approach was popular for roughly a century from around 1850 but is currently only used for particular flow situations.

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_{Poggendorff, J.C. (1936). Richardson, Archibald Read. Biographisch-Literarisches Handwörterbuch 6: 2167-2168; 8: 4351-4352. Verlag Chemie: Leipzig, bibliography.}

_{Richardson, A.R. (1919). Stream-line flow from a disturbed area. Philosophical Magazine}

_{Series 6 38: 433-452.}

_{Richardson, A.R. (1921). Stationary waves in water. Philosophical Magazine Series 6 40(235): 97-110.}

_{Turnbull, H.W. (1955). Archibald Read Richardson. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1: 223-237. P}