Fluids play a crucial role in industrial processes like cooling, heating, and mixing. Traditionally, most industries would utilize Newtonian fluids—which have a constant viscosity—for such processes.

For nearly two centuries, all kinds of researchers interested in how fluids flow have turned to the Navier-Stokes equations. But mathematicians still harbor basic questions about them. Foremost among ...

For more than 250 years, mathematicians have been trying to “blow up” some of the most important equations in physics: those that describe how fluids flow. If they succeed, then they will have ...