Search

After carefully checking the original Russian version of Kolmogorov (1942), in the present author view, both Spalding and Wilcox misinterpretations are due to the fact that they did not notice the two different symbols, which Kolmogorov (1942) actually used.The present author believes that there are other similar misinterpretations in the literature. To avoid them, the present author feels that the following necessary corrections should be made to Kolmogorov (1991).

Qian Jian, a Chinese theoretical physicist and fluid dynamicist, devoted the second part of his scientific life to the physical understanding of small-scale turbulence to the exclusion of all else. Qian developed his own statistical theory of small-scale turbulence, based on the Liouville (1853) equation and a perturbation variational approach to non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, which is compatible with the Kolmogorov-Oboukhov energy spectrum. His statistical theory of small-scale turbulence, which appears mathematically and physically valid, successfully led to his contributions to (i) the closure problem of turbulence; (ii) one-dimensional turbulence; (iii) two-dimensional turbulence; (iv) the turbulent passive scalar field; (v) the cascade model of turbulence; (vi) the universal equilibrium range of turbulence; (vii) a simple model of the bump phenomenon; (viii) universal constants of turbulence; (ix) the intermittency of turbulence; and perhaps most importantly, (x) the effect of the Taylor microscale Reynolds number on both the width of the inertial range of finite Re turbulence and the scaling exponents of velocity structure functions. In particular, Qian found that the inertial range cannot exist when Re is smaller than 2000. In contrast to the prevailing intermittency models, he discovered that normal scaling is valid in the real Kolmogorov inertial range when Re approaches infinity while the anomalous scaling observed in experiments reflects the finite Re effect. He then made a correction to the famous Kolmogorov (1941c) equation and obtained the finite Re effect equation or the Kolmogorov-Novikov-Qian equation. He also independently derived the decay law of the finite Re effect. Qian steered us along the right path to an improved understanding of small-scale turbulence and solutions to its problems.