Formation and near-field dynamics of a wing tip vortex

At an age when most young men have entered the world to make their fortune, I struggled with mathematics, science and the mysteries of the natural world. Those were difficult days, but days that I will look back upon with fond memories. There are many people, too many to mention in these few paragraphs, who helped me to get to this point and succeed where others have failed. I would like to take this opportunity to thank some of the people who contributed most toward the completion of this thesis. I would like to thank my advisor Prof. Morteza Gharib for giving me the opportunity to work on this project. He gave me advice and direction while allowing me the freedom to develop the project according to my own vision. I would like to thank Profs. Hornung, Leonard, Shepherd, and Colonius for graciously agreeing to be members of my thesis committee. Their comments and suggestions were very helpful for making this thesis the "masterpiece " that you are about to read. The many past and present members of Prof. Gharib's research group have lent their knowledge and experience in giving me many suggestions that saved hours and days of trial and error in perfecting the experimental setup and procedure. In particular, I