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Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

 

Professor George Keith Batchelor

8 March 1920 - 30 March 2000

[George Batchelor]

 

Memorial Service

A Memorial Service for George Batchelor was held in Trinity College Chapel on Tuesday 4 July 2000 at 11.00am. The address was given by Keith Moffatt.

 

Obituary in The Telegraph: 18 April 2000

"The don who understood turbulence"

Professor George Batchelor, who has died aged 80, was one of the world's leading figures in the field of fluid mechanics. He contributed greatly to the theoretical understanding of turbulent flows and colloidal systems - the effect on the flow of fluid of large numbers of small particles suspended in it.

John Rallison

Obituary in The Independent: 17 April 2000

This is the version submitted to The Independent

Without George Batchelor modern fluid mechanics would not be the discipline it is today; which he saw as combining physical insight and the application of mathematics directed towards the solution of specific problems; a philosophy of science that was, he said, epitomised by H. Poincare's Science and Method. More ...

Julian Hunt [jcrh@mssl.ucl.ac.uk]

[George Batchelor]

Obituary in The Guardian: 12 April 2000

Marrying maths and mechanics in Cambridge

Professor George Batchelor, who has died aged 80, was a towering figure in the field of fluid mechanics - the science of how matter flows - and had an enormous influence on engineering science and, in Britain and the Commonwealth, applied mathematics. More ...

Tim Pedley

Obituary in The Times: 12 April 2000

Cambridge scientist who set exacting standards in fluid mechanics

At the founding editor of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, a position he held for more than 40 years, George Batchelor exerted a prolonged and profound influence on a subject of central importance to applied mathematics and engineering science. More ...

Keith Moffatt

Announcement in The Times: 5 April 2000

BATCHELOR - Professor George Keith FRS died on 30th March 2000 aged 80 after a courageous battle against Parkinson's Disease. Husband, father, grandfather and brother, and scientific colleague of many in Cambridge and around the world. A simple funeral service will be held at Cambridge Crematorium on Monday 10th April at 12 noon. Family flowers only. A commemoration of George's life and work will be held at Trinity College, Cambridge in the summer.

Announcement from the Head of Department: 31 March 2000

Dear Colleagues,

It is with the greatest regret that I have to tell you that Professor G.K. Batchelor died at Midfield Lodge Nursing Home early in the evening of March 30th. George had been unwell for some time, and he died entirely peacefully after five days of more intensively distressing illness, during which he had become increasingly unaware of his surroundings.

A great deal can be said and should be said about the many lasting contributions made by George to science. These include the very foundation of DAMTP, the expansion of student intake to undergraduate and graduate applied mathematics here, his founding and editorial work of the Journal of Fluid Mechanics through forty-three years from its inception, his development of EUROMECH as a major force for mechanics throughout Europe, his editorship for more than forty-five years of the Cambridge book series `Cambridge Monographs on Mechanics and Applied Mathematics', and in numerous other ways, which have had a lasting influence on literally thousands of young people who have worked in DAMTP since it was founded by George back in 1959.

For that influence and for so much more, we must all be the poorer through George's death, but we shall benefit from George's work for generations to come.

David Crighton

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