I doubt if many students have started out to be a “turbulence person.” I suspect it usually just happens, perhaps like meeting the person you marry. I was an engineering graduate student, nibbling at convective heat transfer, when a friend steered me to a turbulence course taught by John Lumley. It was not rollicking fun – we went through Townsend's The Structure of Turbulent Shear Flow page by page – but it was a completely new field.

I began to explore the turbulence literature, particularly that by the heavy hitters of theoretical physics and applied mathematics. To my engineering eyes it was impregnable; I would need much more coursework before I could even put it in a context. Today I can understand why those theoretical struggles continue. Phil Thompson, a senior scientist in the early NCAR explained it this way: