The Taylor-Proudman theorem, named for Geoffrey Ingram Taylor and Joseph Proudman, is a result in fluid mechanics stating that when a solid body moves slowly through a fluid that is itself rotating steadily at high angular velocity, the fluid's velocity is uniform along any line parallel to the rotation axis, provided the rotation is fast enough that the Coriolis force dominates over the fluid's own acceleration. The Cambridge mathematician Sydney Samuel Hough first derived the result in 1897; Proudman published an independent derivation in 1916 and Taylor his own in 1917, and Taylor went on to confirm the effect experimentally in 1923. The theorem shows that a rapidly rotating fluid behaves as though it were two-dimensional in the plane perpendicular to the rotation axis, a conclusion with applications in oceanography, meteorology and planetary atmospheres.
Facts
StatementWhen a solid body moves slowly through a fluid that is itself rotating steadily at high angular velocity, the fluid's velocity is uniform along any line parallel to the rotation axis. 1 Classification
Statement FormCharacterization Theorem 1 Connections
Has Statement Form
Entity-backed identity for the statement-form enum value this theorem already carries, resolved to a mathematics concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The statement-form fact itself stays on the theorem unchanged.
Sources
1. Taylor-Proudman theorem, Wikipedia
Lede sectionQuote, Lede section
when a solid body is moved slowly within a fluid that is steadily rotated with a high angular velocity Omega, the fluid velocity will be uniform along any line parallel to the axis of rotation.
2. Taylor-Proudman theorem (Wikipedia)
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