Roddam Narasimha is an aerospace scientist, currently at the Engineering Mechanics Unit of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and at the National Institute of Advanced Studies. Much of his earlier professional life was spent at the Indian Institute of Science and the National Aerospace Laboratories. His scientific research has been chiefly in fluid mechanics, in particular flow transitions. In recent years he has also been keenly interested in the history of science and technology.

The Background

On 17 December 1903, two bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio in the United States helped a powered aircraft (they called it a ‘Flyer’) along a wooden rail in a desolate, wind-swept, sandy plain called Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, and flew the craft for almost a minute (Figure 1). By doing this the Wright brothers, Orville (1871-1948) and Wilbur (1867-1912) (Figure 2), had accomplished a feat that much of mankind, including some of its greatest minds, had considered impossible for thousands of years. Famous among the more recent of such skeptics had been Lord Kelvin, who had said as late as 1896, ‘I do not have the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning ’. There were many others who would have agreed with Kelvin, and indeed it was common to say at that time about anything considered impossible that it could not be done – ‘man might as well try to fly’.

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Address for Correspondence

Roddam Narasimha
National Institute of
Advanced Studies
Bangalore 560 012, India.
Email: roddam@caos.iisc.ernet.in