engineering

John V. Wehausen

John V. Wehausen is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John V. Wehausen rather than just read about it. In short: John Vrooman Wehausen (23 September 1913 – 6 October 2005) was an American applied mathematician considered to be one of the world's leading researchers and pioneers in the field of marine hydrodynamics. His contributions were in the area of ship waves, ship maneuverability, floating systems in waves, and ship-generated solitary waves.

Key takeaways

John V. Wehausen belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John V. Wehausen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John V. Wehausen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Vrooman Wehausen (23 September 1913 – 6 October 2005) was an American applied mathematician considered to be one of the world's leading researchers and pioneers in the field of marine hydrodynamics. His contributions were in the area of ship waves, ship maneuverability, floating systems in waves, and ship-generated solitary waves. In 1960, he and Edmund V. Laitone published the comprehensive review article Surface Waves, which to this day is still an important resource for understanding the dynamics of water waves. Wehausen was emeritus professor of engineering science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Education and career Wehausen matriculated at the University of Michigan where he earned B.S. (1934) and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics (1938) as well as an M.S. in physics (1935). In 1937, Wehausen began his first teaching position as an instructor in mathematics at Brown University. After Brown, Wehausen spent teaching stints at Columbia University and the University of Missouri before working for the U.S. Navy during World War II in operations research. He joined the David Taylor Model Basin as a mathematician, and during his three-year tenure there, he met Georg P. Weinblum, the German ship hydrodynamicist. His interest in water-wave theory and ship hydrodynamics can be traced to that period. He was an editor of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics from 1970–1976. In 1956, Wehausen accepted a position at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught until 1984 and where he remained an active researcher thereafter. At Berkeley, Wehausen helped establish the Department of Naval Architecture in 1958 with support from the Office of Naval Research. At the time, only three other U.S. institutions—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan and the Webb Institute—offered accredited degree programs in naval architecture. In 2002, a Special Symposium during the Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering Conference in Oslo, Norway was organized as a tribute to Wehausen. In 2006, a John V. Wehausen Memorial Endowment was established at the UC Berkeley Foundation to provide a scholarship for graduate study in Wehausen's areas of professional interest.

Personal Wehausen loved languages, music, and literature. He was proficient in a number of languages and also was an accomplished musician.

Selected publications Wehausen, J. V. & Laitone, E. V. (1960), Flügge, S. & Truesdell, C. (eds.), "Surface Waves", Encyclopaedia of Physics, 9, Springer Verlag: 446–778, archived from the original on 2013-05-21, retrieved 2011-01-14 Wehausen, J. V. (1971), "The Motion of Floating Bodies", Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 3: 237–268, Bibcode:1971AnRFM...3..237W, doi:10.1146/annurev.fl.03.010171.001321 Wehausen, J. V. (1973), "The wave resistance of ships", Advances in Applied Mechanics, vol. 13, pp. 93–245, doi:10.1016/S0065-2156(08)70144-3, ISBN 9780120020133

References

External links Surface Waves (Online Edition) Archived 2013-05-21 at the Wayback Machine John V. Wehausen Memorial Graduate Scholarship John V. Wehausen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project search on author JV Wehausen from Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John V. Wehausen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John V. Wehausen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John V. Wehausen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John V. Wehausen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John V. Wehausen

In research: John V. Wehausen appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John V. Wehausen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John V. Wehausen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1913 births, 2005 deaths, American fluid dynamicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John V. Wehausen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John V. Wehausen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John V. Wehausen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John V. Wehausen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John V. Wehausen in simple terms?

Why does John V. Wehausen matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John V. Wehausen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John V. Wehausen.