Sylvia Winifred Skan (15 August 1897 – 10 June 1972) was an English applied

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. She is known for her work on

aerodynamics Aerodynamics () is the study of the motion of atmosphere of Earth, air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dynamics and its subfield of gas dynamics, and is an ...

, and in particular for the Falkner–Skan boundary layer in the

fluid mechanics Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasma (physics), plasmas) and the forces on them. Originally applied to water (hydromechanics), it found applications in a wide range of discipl ...

of airflow past a wedge-shaped obstacle, which she wrote about with V. M. Falkner in 1930, and for the associated Falkner–Skan equation. Skan was born in

Bickenhill Bickenhill is a small village in the civil parish of Bickenhill and Marston Green, in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, in the West Midlands county, England, on the eastern fringe of the West Midlands conurbation. Bickenhill is also a ward a ...

on 15 August 1897, the oldest of five children of botanist and of his wife Jane Alkins. She does not appear to have earned a university degree. By 1923 she was working for the Aerodynamics Department of the National Physical Laboratory, where she carried out the entirety of her career. As well as co-authored research papers, 17 of which listed her as first author, her works included translations of research papers from French, German and Russian into English, and a two-volume single-authored book, ''Handbook for Computers'' (1954), describing the mathematics needed for

human computers The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613), meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic calculators became available. Alan Turing de ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Skan, Sylvia 1897 births 1972 deaths Scientists from the West Midlands (county) English mathematicians 20th-century British women mathematicians 20th-century English mathematicians British applied mathematicians Scientists of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) People from the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull