A hundred years ago, a ship propulsion system that uses the wind but is not a sail was invented: the Flettner rotor. Author and scientist Christian Mähr explains the technical details of the concept – and also knows why the system once fell into oblivion. Justifiably?
The case started 170 years ago with the German physicist Gustav Magnus. He addressed the problem of why artillery shells repeatedly deviated from the calculated path despite various influences (air friction, etc.) being taken into account. The most obvious cause is of course the wind. But the wind blows across the path of the bullet, so the shells should be deflected left and right. But they also hit in front of or behind the goal. Magnus therefore realized that it was not just the wind that was to blame, but rather the rotation of the bullet about its longitudinal axis. The interaction creates a force perpendicular to the wind direction.
Source: Krone
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