Reynolds number
Número de Reynolds
- Date
- 1851-1908 (experimento clave en 1883) · confidence medium
- Place
- Manchester, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- George Gabriel Stokes (concept, 1851); Osborne Reynolds (experiment and systematization, 1883)
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Osborne Reynolds experimentally demonstrated in Manchester, by injecting dye into water flowing through pipes, the transition between laminar and turbulent flow, systematizing the dimensionless parameter that Stokes had sketched in 1851 and that Arnold Sommerfeld named after Reynolds in 1908.
It is a cited case of 'Stigler's law of eponymy': the concept was introduced by Stokes in 1851, but the parameter was named after Reynolds, who popularized it experimentally.
What it led to
- systematic distinction between laminar and turbulent flow
- design of pipes, aircraft and ships through dynamic similarity
- foundation of modern experimental fluid mechanics