Person: Spence (2), David
David Spence was a New Zealand-born mathematician who worked in the aeronautics industry and on geophysical problems.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- David grew up, attended school, and did his undergraduate work in New Zealand.
- Spence did not enter the academic world after his doctorate but went to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.
- Spence studied a two-dimensional airfoil placed in an inviscid, incompressible, steady fluid flow, in particular a thin jet coming from its trailing edge of the airfoil.
- Obtaining equations under special conditions, Spence found numerical results for lift, pitching moment, and jet shape, which he compared with experimental results obtained from a wind tunnel.
- In 1964 Spence left the Royal Aircraft Establishment to enter the academic world.
- Spence applied his results on compression of solids to obtain a better understanding of geophysical problems.
- Spence retired from his chair at Imperial College, London, in 1991 when he reached the age of 65.
Born 3 January 1926, Auckland, New Zealand. Died 7 September 2003, Headington, Oxford, England.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin New Zealand
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
