An Appreciation of the Life and Work of William C. Reynolds (1933–2004)

Abstract

Bill Reynolds was a remarkably creative scientist who combined a natural curiosity with enormous energy to make significant contributions to fluid mechanics research. In this article, we combine our own recollections with those of many others to capture the aspects of Bill's personality and sense of humor that made him the irrepressible person that he was. We discuss his works on turbulent flow and touch on others that illustrate the wide range of his interests. We survey his involvement in education through classroom teaching and mentoring of research students, and his lifelong support of the Division of Fluid Dynamics of the American Physical Society. And we cover his many contributions during his long career at Stanford University, where he spent his entire working life, especially his seminal role with the Center for Turbulence Research. He served as the chair of the mechanical engineering department on two separate occasions, for a total of 15 years, and cofounded both the Institute for Energy Studies (IES) and the Center for Turbulence Research (CTR) at Stanford.Bill was a gifted educator: He received the G. Edwin Burks Award for Outstanding Teaching from the American Society of Engineering Education (1972), the Tau Beta Pi Outstanding Teaching Award at Stanford (1974), and the Teaching Award from the Society of Women Engineers. The textbooks Thermodynamics (Reynolds 1968) and Engineering Thermodynamics (Reynolds & Perkins 1977) and Bill's computer program for property estimation, STANJAN, are used at over 100 universities in the United States, and worldwide, including Japan, Russia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Brazil, South Africa, and Australia. The book Energy: From Nature to Man (Reynolds 1974) was used in his course about energy and energy technology aimed primarily at nonengineering students. The book is a timely and cogent presentation of quantitative aspects of energy sciences, and the accompanying societal/policy choices.But these simple statements of facts and honors paint an incomplete picture of Bill.