A MEMORIAL TO GOD MY FATHER
(Exodus 17:14)
Psalm 9:11 says
"Sing praises to the LORD, which dwelleth in Zion:
declare among the people his doings."
This letter is a memorial to God my Father to declare His doing
among the people, to give Him all the glory for the work that He
has done in my life. It is a testimony of how God has made me to
prosper in my research for the Navy, through four miracles.
I. BACKGROUND
About a year ago, when I was preparing to take my Preliminary
Doctoral Exams, my pastor showed me several verses to encourage
me that God could help me in this matter:
"...God gave them knowledge and skill
in all learning and wisdom..."
Dan 1:17
"And in all matters of wisdom and understanding,
that the king enquired of them,
he found them ten times better than all the
magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm."
Dan 1:20
"O how love I thy law!
it is my meditation all the day.
Thou through thy commandments
hast made me wiser than mine enemies:
for they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers:
for thy testimonies are my meditation."
Psa 119:97-99
So I asked God, if this is true, can you do this for me,
as you have done it before? I want to be ten times wiser
in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that men may
see my research and glorify my God in heaven.
In addition, to these I had been interested in the life of
King Uzziah, in that "as long as he sought the LORD, God
made him to prosper." 2Ch 26:5b
In addition, it has been my goal to
"seek first the kingdom of God,
and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you."
Mat 6:33
So from these verses, it was evident that:
1. God is able to give us wisdom and knowledge, and
make us ten times smarter and wiser than all our teachers,
or peers.
2. He gives prosperity as we seek first the Lord,
seeking to keep His commandments
(Matt. 6:33, 2Chr. 1:12-13, 2Chr. 26:5)
So I had purposed in my heart to seek first to do His will,
and to keep His commandments, and to glorify Him. In fact,
I have several times asked God that maybe it would be better
to quit my PhD program, and do more full-time work for Him.
But God has continued to reaffirm that I am right where He
wants me to be.
Two other verses have been really important to me also:
"And whatsoever ye do,
do it heartily,
as to the Lord,
and not unto men;"
Col 3:23
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink,
or whatsoever ye do,
do all to the glory of God."
1Co 10:31
So, it has been my continual prayer to be able to glorify God
in my work, by working with all my heart as to the Lord.
II. EXTENDING BLASIUS' THEORY TO HIGH REYNOLDS NUMBER FLOWS
Paul Richard Heinrich Blasius (1873-1970) was a student of Ludwig
Prandtl (1875-1953), a German scientist who started the field of Fluid
Mechanics. Blasius was famous for his boundary layer theory which
expressed resistence in flow through pipes as a function of the
Reynolds number (a non-dimensional number representing speed,
velocity, density, and viscosity of a fluid). Many theories were
based on the initial work of Blasius. One of those theories was the
method to scale cavitation inception (when cavitation, or water
boiling begins to occur on a propeller).
This summer I worked with the Navy in Washington D.C. I am working
with a team of scientists from University of Michigan, Penn. State,
the Navy, and Dynaflow (a small consulting firm) to understand the
physics of what causes cavitation inception, and how to scale results
we test on a model to full-scale performance.
About two years ago, the Office of Naval Research funded the
University of Michigan and Princeton University to study Reynolds
number scaling effects on propulsors. The University of Michigan
teamed with the Large Cavitation Channel, in Memphis, TN, where I was
working at that time to do experiments to see if we could come up with
a correlation, on how fluid-flow scaled from model test results to
full-scale. At that time, I had worked to acquire the experimental
data, but all the analysis work was to be done by Michigan. The
results of the millions of dollars the Navy spent to investigate this
problem seemed to be in vain. We were able to publish a paper at a
conference in France, but were not able to show any Reynolds number
scaling effects.
This past summer, when I went up to Washington D.C. I was asked to go
back and look at the experimental data we had taken two years ago,
and to re-analyze the data that Michigan had failed to show any
Reynolds number dependency. God had allowed me to learn some tricks
many years before, on how to analyze turbulent boundary layers, from
my old boss in Memphis. From that knowledge, and God giving me wisdom
and knowledge, I was able to, in just a few days, rescale the data in
a way that the Navy thought was brilliant. From rescaling the data,
and doing some simple curve fits, I was able to show a Reynolds number
dependence that was very interesting.
Blasius showed a dependency on Reynolds number to the 1/5th power (for
displacement thickness), and I showed that it was actually 1/10th.
What we found out later is that all the experimental work that Blasius
had done was based on very low Reynolds number (i.e. very small ship
models). In the case where the Reynolds number is on the order of a
full scale ship, this becomes much different.
What does this mean? This means that all the theories based on
Blasius were not exactly correct when applied to full-scale ship flow.
Based on my very initial results, the Navy gave me a $30k grant to
publish my findings. I have written a paper titled “High Reynolds
Number Boundary Layer Scaling on a Large Hydrofoil (HIFOIL)” for
those interested. This has proven to be a very contraversial paper
in the Navy because this work undermines the work of University of
Michigan, and shows theories which people have been using as an
underlying assumption for years to be wrong. But even recently,
I was asked to use parts of my work for a paper submitted to
the Journal of Fluids Engineering, one of the most prestigious
journals in the field of fluid mechanics.
Well, this seemed like a great breakthrough, but God was not finished.
Praise ye the LORD.
Praise the LORD, O my soul.
Psa 146:1
III. SOLVING THE "UNSOLVABLE"
Recently, I was asked to present my research at the ONR S&T Top-level
Submarine Propulsor Review meeting in Washington D.C. This is a
classified meeting, where all the people that are working on submarine
propulsion come together and discuss their latest scientific
achievements.
I was very nervous because of the fact that I was the only student
there. Actually, almost everyone there was considered THE expert in
their field. The invited speakers were Paul Moin, from Stanford
University (the expert on Large Eddy Simulation), Prof. Jake Kerwin
from MIT (THE world authority on propeller design), Dr. Tommy Huang
(who used to teach Physics at Johns Hopkins and was also once paid
a million dollars by Boeing, because he was considered the only person
in the world that knew enough to experimentally study the decay of tip
vortices from airliners), Roger Simpson (world-famous experimentalist
from Virginia Polytechnic University), and quite a few others from
Penn. State, etc. And then there was me, a nobody graduate student from
Mississippi State University.
I was given the honor of going second to last, at the end of a very
long day. I was so nervous that I just kept praying Philippians
4:6-7:
Be anxious for nothing;
but in every thing by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving
let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God,
which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
My worst nightmare was that I would get up there and be drilled with
questions. For example, "Why didn't you investigate this???" As this
seemed to be very common among all the previous speakers. The
scientists seemed to be very critical of each other. I asked God that
no one would ask any questions, for my presentation. A request that
seemed almost impossible, considering that they were interrupting the
previous speakers right and left.
When I got up to give my presentation, God had answered my prayers: I
had no anxiety whatsoever, and not a single person asked a question.
It was like a dream. The host of the meeting immediately stood up and
said "Good work, very good work." And as I went back to my chair
everyone person I passed told me "great work". I sat down in my chair
and Dr. Tommy Huang said "you have just solved the most difficult
problem of fluid mechanics". This was the same guy that told me once,
that this problem was unsolvable. Sir Horace Lamb (1932), British
physicist said,
"I am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven
there are two matters on which I hope for enlightenment.
One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is
the turbulent motion of fluids. And about the former
I am rather optimistic."
Another guy, who is the head of the Navy's Computational Fluid
Dynamics group leaned over and said "many people have tried to solve
this problem, but you are the first to actually solve it." Another
scientist, a holder of the David Taylor award, for the scientist that
has made "superior technical achievements", told me that he worried
that my work would so intimidate all the other people that are working
on this project, that they would want to quit the project. He told me
"You did a really good job", then he paused and he said again "I mean
it is really good". The host of the meeting told me how impressed he
was and how impressed that I was able to do the work so quickly,
seeing how no one else working on this project was able to show any
conclusive results.
Yes it was like a dream. I went all the way to the airport praising
God and thanking Him for what He had done. Because the Scriptures
says "as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper." God
had done exactly what He had said in His word, to make me "to
prosper", and appear "wiser than all my teachers" (Psa 119:98).
When I got back to Starkville, my advisor, Dr. David Whitfield,
Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering, who is not known for
giving complements sent me this email (and also to all the professors
on my dissertation committee):
> David Whitfield wrote:
> >
> > Wes, my wife has always told me that I do not
> > commend good work often enough. I just wanted
> > to tell you that I received many complements
> > on your work and your presentation last week.
> > In fact, Lafe and I continued to receive them
> > later in the week when we attended the DARPA
> > Drag Reduction Review on Friday and Saturday.
> > Good job.
> >
> > Dave
Praise God for the work that He has done. Psalm 150:6 says:
Let everything that hath breath praise the LORD.
So in the end, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever"
(Heb. 13:8). And the things that are written in the Bible are
written for us today and are true to all who will believe, and behold
the faithfulness of God (1Co 10:11).
This is just another example of the faithfulness of God. And that if
we would continue to meditate day and night on the Scriptures
(Jos. 1:8, Psalm 1:2-3, James 1:22,25), we will be prosperous and have
good success in everything. Thus, we will be able to glorify Him in
all that we do.
IV. ELIMINATING TIP VORTEX CAVITATION
My next goal is the most challenging of all, but I know that
"For with God nothing shall be impossible" Luke 1:37
I am praying that God will unlock the mysteries of His creation.
He hath made the earth by his power,
he hath established the world by his wisdom,
and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.
Jer 51:15
I have a hypothesis that cavitation is caused by the interaction of
two vortices coming off a propeller blade. I have been studying
nature for how God has dealt with this problem. I have several
designs that I have sent to the Navy. I hope and pray that I will be
able to (1) eliminate tip vortex cavitation alltogether, and (2) be
able to provide an effective design for completely annihilating the
tip vortices in general. I ask that you will pray with me in this
venture. For it is God that is working in me, both to will and to do
of His good pleasure (Php 2:13).
A movie of my results can be seen at
http://www.erc.msstate.edu/~wbrewer/research/cfdexp20.mpg
http://www.erc.msstate.edu/~wbrewer/research/sim20.mpg
The simulation is a mathematical model of fluid motion. The
Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (nonlinear partial
differential equations) are approximated at approximately four
million grid points in the domain. The problem is broken into 64
sub-problems which are solved on a parallel supercomputer.
cfdexp20.mpg:
What we experimentally observe in nature is shown on the
right. My computational simulation is shown on the left.
sim20.mpg:
In the center graph, watch the two vortices become intertwined
around each other. At the same time this happens, watch
on the left, the pressure drops to a minimum. Theoretically,
cavitation occurs at the point of minimum pressure. One
interesting discovery from this research, is that the minimum
pressure does not occur at the vortex center. This will
have ramifications to some other theories, which I hope to
modify.
V. THE PATH AHEAD: THE FISH DECLARE GOD'S CREATION
Recently, God has worked another great miracle. I recently started a
club at the university called "The Society for the Advancement of
Creation Science" (http://www.msstate.edu/org/sacs). I am ashamed
to say that my motivation at first was to have an organization that
would provide means for me to utilize resources on campus for ministry
work, but especially useful was the potential 65 MBytes of web space
I could get to use for a website that my pastor and I are developing
(http://biyn.org).
Despite my motives, starting this organization started to get me
thinking about creation and evolution. It was a scientist who came to
the University of Tennessee back in 1991, and gave a talk on how there
was scientific evidence that God created the universe, that really
helped me intellectually to deal with the LIE of evolution. (By the way,
most scientific evidence for evolution is fraudulant. Contact me, for
more information on this.) Well, all this thinking and studying about
creation and evolution, having recently studied different scientists
views on the matter, helped me to reach a conclusion: I want to spend
my life applying Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to study God's creation,
to show the vast superiority in His perfect design and to show
that we could not have evolved. As Isaac Newton phrased so nicely
in the Principia (often referred to as the greatest scientific
work ever written):
A Heavenly Master governs all the world as Sovereign of the universe.
We are astonished at Him by reason of His perfection,
we honor Him and fall down before
Him because of His unlimited power.
From blind physical necessity,
which is always and everywhere the same,
no variety adhering to time and place could evolve,
and all variety of created objects which represent order
and life in the universe could happen only
by the willful reasoning of its original Creator,
Whom I call the Lord God.
Job 12:7-10 says:
But ask now the beasts,
and they shall teach thee;
and the fowls of the air,
and they shall tell thee:
Or speak to the earth,
and it shall teach thee:
and the FISHES of the sea
SHALL DECLARE unto thee.
Who knoweth not in all these
that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this?
In whose hand is the soul of every living thing,
and the breath of all mankind.
Does the fish of the sea declare that God created the Heavens and the
Earth? If so, I want to know. I specifically had purposed in my
heart to study Fish using CFD, so that I might be able to reverse
engineer what God has made, and discover the mechanisms by which fish
achieve such a high efficiency of propulsion. And I prayed to God,
"God, if you would show me a way to do this, to get a grant to study
fish swimming, this is what I want to do with my life."
So just a day or say after I had prayed this prayer, I went in to talk
with my advisor to tell him what I was thinking. And he said
something like "Wes, it is funny you should mention this fish thing.
I just hired a guy to investigate new promising research programs and
the predominate response I am getting is that using CFD to study fish
is very promising." Well, the next thing I know I am in a meeting
talking to this guy about how to start this "fish program". And the
guy tells me "I'm just going to help you get the grant and help you
get started with the program, then I will leave and it will be all
yours." I could hardly believe what I was hearing. It turns out
that the Office of Naval Research had made a Broad Agency Announcement
(BAA) to solicity white papers for doing CFD on Fish.
So now I am learning everything I could possibly learn about fish,
because in six months I have to have an intelligent-sounding proposal
in to the Office of Naval Research.
What is amazing about this is that God had answered my prayer
before I even asked it. Isaiah 65:24 says:
"And it shall come to pass,
that before they call,
I will answer;
and while they are yet speaking,
I will hear."
Isa 65:24
One of the most precious promises that I have learned
over the years is 1 John 5:14-15:
And this is the confidence that we have in him,
that,
if we ask any thing according to his will,
he heareth us:
And if we know that he hear us,
whatsoever we ask,
we KNOW that we have the petitions
that we desired of him.
My paraphrase:
IF we ask anything according to HIS WILL,
and IF we know that He hears us,
WE KNOW that we have the petitions that we asked of HIM.
So if this is true, there are certain things that I can ask of God,
that HE guarantees He will answer. And those things are what He has
clearly revealed in His word. I also must note that there are also
things that God says He will not answer (see James 4:2b-3); we cannot
just pray for whatever we want, and expect God to answer it. However,
the things that God has revealed to us in His word about Himself, we
must pray according to these things!
May God bless you as you continue to seek Him.
wes
Rom 11:36
A. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to all those who have been praying for me and my work,
especially to my pastor Randy Phillips who has labored in prayers that
God would unlock the mysteries of His creation to me. God has used
the work of many other people to make this happen, including Dr. David
Whitfield, Dr. Lafe Taylor, Dr. Daniel Hyams, Dr. Kidambi Sreenivas,
and Mr. Brent Mitchell of Mississippi State University, Dr. Kevin Farrell
of Penn State University, Dr. Stuart Jessup, Dr. Young Shen, and
Dr. C.I. Yang of the Navy. And it could not have been done without the
work of Navier and Stokes for developing the mathematical equations
used to accurately describe fluid flow. And of course Isaac Newton,
who provided the mathematical framework for understanding God's
Creation.