The Scientific Legacy of George Gabriel Stokes

The scientific legacy of George Gabriel Stokes is considered. Certain aspects of Stokes’s research work are reviewed and related to more recent fields of research. These include the Navier–Stokes equations and other approaches to rational continuum mechanics, the issue of existence of solutions, the boundary no-slip condition; Stokes flow and the issue of pendulum drag; the Hele-Shaw cell, viscous fingering, wavelength selection in pattern formation; moving contact lines; the highest water wave, rogue waves, the NLS equation; Stokes lines, exponential asymptotics, dendrite growth, slow manifods, and diffraction.