DEDICATION TO SIR THOMAS HAVELOCK 
Theodore von Karman 
Advisory Group for Aeronautical Research and Development 
Paris 
_It is a great honor and a pleasure for me to give this address which dedicates this 
Third Symposium on Naval Hydrodynamics to Sir Thomas H. Havelock. Unfortunately my 
knowledge on wave mechanics, which was the main domain to which Sir Thomas made clas- 
sical contributions, is restricted to the fundamentals. However, it is a remarkable coinci- 
dence that in the first half of our century aerodynamics and naval hydrodynamics made 
analogous progress, and this encourages me to talk to you on the contributions of T. H. 
Havelock at least from the viewpoint of an interested amateur. Also I had the good luck to 
obtain the support and assistance of excellent specialists through the good services of my 
friend J. G. Wenzel, Vice-President, General Dynamics Corporation. I would like to express 
my thanks to him, to Mr. Earl Uram of the General Dynamics Electric Boat Division, to Dr. 
Paul Wyers of Convair, and to several members of the U.S. Navy Bureau of Weapons and of 
the David Taylor Model Basin for helping me to obtain the necessary information. Dr. John 
Vannucci, Technical Information Officer of AGARD with the assistance of Mr. Francis H. 
Smith, Librarian, Royal Aeronautical Society, furnished me a complete list of Sir Thomas’ 
publications. 
Sir Thomas Henry Havelock was born in 1877; he is four years my senior. Incidentally 
we are both unmarried; according to Francis Bacon, to no wife the next best is a good wife. 
Sir Thomas published his first paper in 1903; the first paper published in my Collected 
Works is from the year 1902. 
The list of the scientific papers published by Sir Thomas Havelock contains 83 items; 
the last item appeared in 1958. The first eight publications refer mostly to general prob- 
lems of wave propagation, as for example the “Mathematical analysis of wave propagation 
in isotropic space at p dimensions” (Proc. London Math. Soc., 1904) or “Wave fronts con- 
sidered as the characteristics of partial differential equations” (ibidem, 1904), but also to 
investigations in quite different fields of application, like “The dispersion of double refrac- 
tion in relation to crystal structure” (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1907). 
The first investigation which has relation to the problem of ship waves is his paper 
published in 1908: “The propagation of groups of waves in dispensive media, with applica- 
tion to waves on water produced by a traveling disturbance” (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1908). Then 
_ the next year Sir Thomas first called the child by its proper name: “The wave-making resis- 
tance of ships: a theoretical and practical analysis” (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1909). However his 
broad interest in applied mathematics and theoretical physics remained to occupy his atten- 
tion at least until about 1930. We find in the list—in between papers dealing with hydro- 
dynamics and wave resistance—dissertations like “The dispersion of electric double 
refraction” (Phys. Rev., 1909) and “Optical dispersion and selective reflection with applica- 
tion to infrared natural frequencies” (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1929). 
Let us briefly review the fundamental principles of ship resistance as they were 
established by Froude. 
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