This is Cambridge's world-famous turbomachinery laboratory, named after Frank Whittle - one of the inventors of the jet engine for aircraft propulsion. Whittle Laboratory is a part of the Engineering Department but situated outside the city centre, by the side of Madingley Road. Abhijit Guha was fortunate to be at this laboratory during its "golden period"**, its academic members included a catalogue-full of famous people and pioneers in the field - Sir William Hawthorne (FRS), Sir John Horlock (FRS), John Denton (FRS), Denis Whitehead, Nick Cumpsty, John Young, Bill Dawes, Tom Hynes, Howard Hodson and Ivor Day, and the laboratory was frequently visited by luminaries across the world, e.g. Edward Greitzer of the MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory or Claus Sieverding of the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. There was constant and vigorous interaction with engine manufacturers like Rolls-Royce and GE, and other industries. There was a community culture inside the laboratory with professors, students and technicians taking tea/coffee together at 11am and 4pm, and many walking together to the nearby cafeteria at Cavendish Laboratory for lunch. John Denton was one of the pioneers in the field of time-marching CFD techniques and would readily give all members of the laboratory access to his computer codes (very expensive top-selling products); similarly Bill Dawes's viscous CFD codes were available to laboratory members when needed. This atmosphere of co-operation helped to sustain and amplify excellence and world-leadership. A nostalgic reunion took place in 2003 to mark the laboratory's 30th anniversary.

** As described by John Denton in his speech on the 30th anniversary.

Picture of Silver Mug presented to Abhijit Guha by Whittle Laboratory, Cambridge University
Whittle Laboratory website

Add to the list of the luminaries at Whittle Laboratory mentioned above, the likes of Profs Ffowcs-Williams (RAE Whittle Medal), Ann Dowling (FRS), Ken Bray (FRS) or Rex Britter - and one gets a contemporary picture of the thermofluids group (Division A) of the Cambridge Engineering Department during the time of Abhijit Guha at Cambridge. On top of this, was the legendary faculty at DAMTP, including GK Batchelor, David Crighton, JCR Hunt and H Huppert. It is at Cambridge that AG met many other Masters such as Sir James Lighthill (FRS), Adrian Bejan or Ascher Shapiro. Thursday 2:30 was the time for research seminars for Division A, and a long procession of bicycles used to transport the people of Whittle Laboratory to the main site at Trumpington Street (the forward and return journey being of about 4 miles). The Engineering Library had 24/7 access and borrowing facility  - even a PhD student could borrow any book at  any time (say, 4am should one so wished) on any day (including holidays), all that was needed was the filling - on trust - of the details of the borrowed items on a piece of paper which would be formalised by the library staff on the next working day. Abhijit Guha taught Two Phase Heat Transfer to final year engineering students, this gained such reputation among students that the deputy Head of Department (i.e. deputy Dean engineering faculty) wrote unprecedented Letters of Commendation  each year.

Cambridge has a long tradition of being a world-leading research centre in fluid dynamics. Starting from Issac Newton, fluid dynamicists of the absolutely highest calibre like George Stokes, G.I. Taylor, James Lighthill and George Batchelor have made the Cambridge contribution to this field distinctive. Fluid dynamicists like Osborne Reynolds have been educated at Cambridge. Cambridge has similarly nurtured pioneers and world-leaders in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) – D.B. Spalding and Antony Jameson were educated at Cambridge, J.D. Denton worked there. The leading journal in the field – the Journal of Fluid Mechanics (JFM) – was founded by George Batchelor in 1956 and is published by the Cambridge University Press (CUP). Batchelor was the editor of the journal for some forty years.

The Cambridge Dimension
Cambridge has given Issac Newton and Charles Darwin. Cambridge's attainment of the summit is demonstrable from a simple but startling statistics - by 2010, 65 students of the University of Cambridge, 57 academic staff, 88 affiliates altogether have won the Nobel Prize (which is awarded since 1901). The breadth offered by Cambridge is equally awe-inspiring. The following is the summary of this feeling captured during the course of journey of one man through this university.

Cambridge provided an extraordinary atmosphere for research excellence. One not only had the access to the wisdom of the topmost experts in one’s own field, but also could have first-hand awareness about the developments and discoveries in other fields. Outside the thermofluids area mentioned above, one could also attend lectures of the likes of  Michael Ashby (FRS, FEng, h-index > 60), KL Johnson (FRS, FEng), CR Calladine (FRS, FREng) or Jim Woodhouse in other fields of engineering. Cambridge was the regular venue for lectures by international Masters in all fields - be it arts and humanities, physical-biological-social sciences, mathematics and computing, or engineering.  It is here that A Guha has attended lectures by Stephen Hawking (cosmology, imaginary time,...), Roger Penrose (cosmology, consciousness and intelligence), Edward Witten (mathematical physics, highest h-index of any living physicist), Fred Hoyle (nucleosynthesis, steady state theory, origin of life), Murray Gell-Mann (complexity), Abdus Salam (unification of forces), Benoît Mandelbrot (fractal), Michael Atiyah (knot theory, topology), Christopher Zeeman (catastrophe theory), GI Barenblatt (scaling laws, chaos), Michael Ashby (engineering design, materials selection), James Lighthill (fluid dynamics of hearing), CR Calladine (analysis of biological structures), JE Ffowcs-Williams (fluid dynamics of snoring), Jim Woodhouse (physics of musical instruments), Roddam Narasimha (turbulence, Indian space and rocket technology), JCR Hunt (turbulence), H Huppert (magma flow), William Hawthorne (turbomachinery, jet engines), Freeman Dyson, Anita Desai (reading from own novels), and Amartya Sen (development economics), among countless others (apology for the incompleteness of the list). Many in the list of speakers won the Nobel Prize/Fields Medal. All stalwarts of Whittle Laboratory presented at least one seminar each year. It was during the period 1993-1995 when Andrew Wiles and Richard Taylor, both former students of University of Cambridge, created international intellectual excitement by proving the Fermat's Last Theorem.

Cambridge had an intellectual and philosophical ambience – one would discuss about Alan Turing, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Noam Chomsky or Jacques Derrida, for example. A Guha, as a Fellow of Caius (a so-called 'Cambridge Don'), personally witnessed in 1992 one of the rare twentieth century spectacle of Senate Voting at University of Cambridge on whether an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree would be offered to the French philosopher Jacques Derrida known for his work on deconstruction. Cambridge also offered an international ambience – interactions with various cultures and viewpoints made one wise and tolerant.

The specialist and public lectures organized in the Lady Mitchell Hall, Babbage Lecture Theatre, Newton Institute or departmental lecture theatres are such rich sources of knowledge, analysis and critical thinking that they truly widen the horizon, enrich human life and do not let one become myopic. Other than one-off lectures by international luminaries, there are also organized series of public lectures. For example, A Guha still cherishes the superb Darwin Lecture Series as well as a set of uplifting lectures on Italian paintings and sculptures by Prof. Patrick Boyde. Since 1986, the Darwin Lecture Series is organized each year on a particular theme on which international experts in diverse fields present 8 lectures (each year) on different aspects of the common theme. This outstanding lecture series has covered topics such as "Origins", "Fragile Environment", "Discoveries", "Catastrophe", "Intelligence", "Evolution", "Colour", "Sound", "Memory", "Body", "Time", "Space", "Power", "DNA", "Evidence", "Conflict", "Survival", "Identity", "Serendipity", "Darwin", "Risk".  For a willing mind, Cambridge thus provides an unparalleled opportunity for all-round learning.  No wonder, the university has maintained its world-leading excellence for 800 years, the 800th anniversary having been celebrated in 2009.
©Abhijit Guha
Picture of Silver Mug presented to Abhijit Guha by Whittle Laboratory, Cambridge University
Commendation 1 on Two Phase Heat Transfer Course at Cambridge University (from Prof. A.P. Dowling, FRS, currently the Dean of Engineering)
Commendation 2 on Two Phase Heat Transfer Course at Cambridge University (from Prof. A.P. Dowling, FRS, currently the Dean of Engineering)