[jola]

I agree with you - CFD doesn't work in theory, but once you know a bit about it it is quite cool. My story comes from the opposite side though.

Many years ago, when I started at University, I did so with the very clear goal to study and eventually work with theoretical physics. However, after a few years and after having read several courses on quantum physics I slowly lost the passion for that side of science. At that level theoretical phsysics just becomes statistics and incomprehensible equations without any clear physical meaning.

After three years at University focusing on theoretical physics I was longing for a course with a clear physical interpretation. By chance I saw a notice about a grad-course in turbulence. Turbulence sounded cool and something more concrete than quantum physics - you just had to play with a milk drop in your tea or watch the flow in a river to see how vortices broke down and eventually created turbulence.... So my first ever course in fluid dynamics was a grad-course in turbulence ;-) It wasn't quite as concrete and down-to-eath as I had imagined.

However, the balance between a foundation that is very theoretical and not fully understood and applications that are very down-to-earth and easy to understand is what makes CFD so interesting I think. In CFD you need to be a good engineer, sometimes even an artist, to produce results that are any good. Yet you can sit with your 4-year old son and watch the flow in a creek and he will marvel and to some extent understand the vortex-dynamics that you try to explain to him.