Believing Bernoulli

Abstract

Eight separate applications of Bernoulli’s equation to fluid flows are reviewed. A possibility that Bernoulli’s law was anticipated, some 300 years earlier, by Leonardo da Vinci is pointed out as well as Einstein’s use of the equation for elementary explanations of several fluid motions. One example of how a classical mathematical technique applied to the standard theoretical description of the surface gravity wave inadvertently obliterated Bernoulli’s physics is reported. In the atmosphere a proposal is made that Bernoulli’s law helps to understand the low pressure inside a tornado.