From Backfire to Breakthrough

As Claude-Louis Navier watched his new building crumble before his eyes, he pondered his decision to study architecture. Perhaps this was not the right course of action, he thought, as a meticulously sculpted gargoyle shattered by his feet. Dentistry. Mom said I should have been a dentist. A loud crack reverberated off the other structurally sound buildings lining the street as his foundation split in half. Months of physical work, years of planning, and lifetimes of knowledge disintegrating. All because of his one simple miscalculation.

“Disappointing, really,” said a man next to him, gazing up at the spectacle that had been made of Claude’s career. Claude knew this man—he was a member of one of the many legally distinct and yet utterly indistinguishable government committees Claude had been forced to win over in the process of creating this building—but he could not recall his name. Probably because he didn’t like him. Claude, as a rule, didn’t waste space in his brain on people or things he didn’t like. (He called it efficient; his therapist called it avoidance.) This man’s greasy mustache and self-satisfied demeanor epitomized what Claude didn’t like.

“Is this what happens when you drop a sign?” Ah, that’s right. This was the “don’t count on those fancy mathematics” man on the architect certification committee. That whole process—this whole community, Claude reflected—was filled with pompous jerks. The man chuckled when Claude didn’t reply. “That’s fine, save your words for the committee. In any case, I’m sure they’ll have plenty for you.”

They did, in fact, have plenty of words for him. They were the kind of words on which Claude didn’t waste brain space.

Stripped of his architect status, Claude stewed quietly in the corner of a cafe. It really wasn’t the right career for him—too much bureaucracy, too many hoops to jump through (and Claude had never been an athletic man). He was better off, really, he told himself. But the one thing that he couldn’t seem to remove from his thoughts, despite his dislike, was the smug face of that greasy man. He was the reason why, when someone wrote a book about him someday (and someone would, Claude was sure), there would be a chapter about his public government reprimand for “relying too heavily on mathematics.” Too heavily on mathematics! The most fundamental part of the universe! He marveled at how truly idiotic this man was. How inane. How imbecilic. How—

Before Claude could think of another alliterative insult, a burst of steam exploded outside with a squeal not dissimilar to that of a baby, or a cat dropped from great heights (Claude disliked both). A vehicle, one of the new-fangled horseless ones, had broken down in the middle of the street. Claude watched in self-pitying disinterest, still sulking in his shame, as the driver attempted to contain the disaster. A shiny copper pipe had burst at a bend— physics hated right angles—and the propulsion from the jet of vapor had tipped the cart over with surprising forcefulness. Unable to get close to the pipe without burning herself, the driver was unsuccessfully trying to tug the vehicle to the side of the road, away from traffic. Traffic, meanwhile, was in a similar state of disaster, the horses all having been thoroughly spooked by the noise. One had shat itself on the spot. Overall, it was an entertaining scene and a welcome distraction for Claude.

Normally, Claude wouldn’t even consider offering his help (a grown adult should be able to carry themselves through life just fine), but steam power interested him. The next big thing, everyone called it. The future of technology. The culmination of humanity’s knowledge. So, he nobly sacrificed the rest of his warm coffee and made his way to the scene. The pressure had dissipated quickly, leaving the burst pipe dripping on the road. Offering a hand to the driver, they tipped the vehicle upright again, more hot water sloshing out of the pipe in the process.

“Thank you, sir,” the driver wiped her hands. “Shoddy workmanship. Honestly, it’s appalling,” she deflected, waving at the cart with disdain.

“Surely they’ve figured out the amount of pressure in these pipes? Can’t they just…” Claude gestured awkwardly at the pipes; human interaction had never been his strong spot.

“You’d think,” she scoffed. “Apparently, ‘steam is hard’,” she quoted sarcastically. “They ‘just don’t have the numbers’ so it’s all experimentation. Prefer if they experimented before they sold it to me...” She shook her head. Claude just nodded. After a quick beat of silence, he waved a polite goodbye and walked off before he could be compelled to help anymore— she could find her own way home.

As Claude began his own walk home, he pondered her words. (He liked pondering, it made him feel important.) Now, Claude was not a religious man, but he couldn’t help but feel that the universe had gifted him this opportunity. If “they just don’t have the numbers” wasn’t a sign, then Claude didn’t know what was. A real-life, important topic that needed a smart and handsome mathematician (such as himself) to swoop in and save the day, proving the viability of mathematics in the process? Well.

Was he projecting? Possibly. Probably. But either way, Claude flung himself into this problem with all the vigor he could manage. He soon learned that the subject of fluid dynamics was, to put it mildly, rough. The current models were simple and inaccurate—even the best failed to account for velocity, an agonizingly necessary component of steam-power calculations. It pained him to do so, but after piles upon haphazard piles of work, Claude reached out to another mathematician for help.

George Gabriel Stokes was an Irish mathematician Claude had met at a scientific conference, back when he still bothered to attend those stuffy popularity contests. Unlike most of the other attendees, George had actually seemed to like Claude. His cheerful disposition had irritated Claude endlessly, but every scowl he delivered was met by a grin. Unlike Claude, George had always been applauded for his scientific work—he had even been knighted, a fact that inspired a slight resentment in Claude. Still, they worked well together. Claude’s mechanical engineering and architectural experience meshed well with George’s physics studies, and George’s ceaselessly sunny demeanor was so powerful that even Claude couldn’t bring him down. Soon they managed to develop a set of differential equations that could, theoretically, entirely predict the movement of those elusive, turbulent fluids.

It was this “theoretically,” however, that kept Claude up at night. These differential equations were complicated (surprise), and for the life of him, Claude could not prove that a solution existed in three dimensions. And it wasn’t for lack of trying—no, anyone who had observed him in the past months could attest to how hard the man was working. Even George, who had similarly dedicated his career to this problem, would occasionally worry about his late nights and eating habits. In fact, George was the one that eventually managed to convince Claude to give up.

It had become apparent at least a year ago that this problem was unsolvable, at least for them. The equations were still serviceable—in fact, they were an incredible leap forward in the field of physics—but Claude’s pride prevented him from just setting them aside, incomplete. He had already lost faith in his ability to solve them, but pride and stubbornness carried him through many more months of agonizing, fruitless work. It was only when George forcefully brought Claude to one of his social gatherings for scientists, and when Claude witnessed the grudging respect and admiration his work had garnered him, could he finally be convinced to give up.

A small part of him, however, never let go. It was this small part of him that would occasionally find him in his garage in the middle of the night, scribbling away and hoping for a breakthrough. It was this small part of him that set aside a portion of his inheritance for anyone who managed to solve it, just because he wanted to see. It was this small part of him that drove the rest of his work, this lifelong dissatisfaction that cemented his place in history as one of the founders of fluid dynamics.

Selina M. is a twelfth-grader; her interests include abstract math, mechanical engineering, and epic fantasy. In this short piece of historical fiction, she explores the life of Claude-Louis Navier, using a largely fictionalized character spliced with Navier’s actual journey from failed architect to legendary mathematician.