If particle physics is the dazzling crown prince of science, fluid mechanics is the cantankerous queen mother: While her loyal subjects flatter her as being rich, mature, and insightful, many consider her to be démodé, uninteresting, and difficult. In her youth, she was more attractive. Her inconsistencies were taken as paradoxes that bestowed on her an air of depth and mystery. The resolution of her paradoxes left her less beguiling but more powerful, and marked her coming of age. She has since seen it all and has weighed in on topics ranging from cosmology to astronautics. Scientists are currently exploring whether she has any wisdom to offer on the controversial subject of quantum foundations.
Metaphor provides a means of using one subject to gain insight into another. Even at that imprecise level of comparison, fluid mechanics is a rich resource—for example, Isaac Newton spoke of corpuscles of light skipping through...
