The man behind one of fluid mechanics’ greatest mysteries has taken his place in the Timaru District Hall of Fame.
The late Dr John Elder was born in Timaru in 1933.
He was an academic geophysicist and applied mathematician best known for his studies of the dynamic role of the interior heat of earth and creation of the enigmatic ‘‘Elder Problem’’.
It took scientists 50 years to crack the problem created by Dr Elder in 1967.
It involved natural convection — where a fluid layer is heated from below and convection cells form as warm fluid rises and cool fluid sinks.
His experimental results did not match his mathematical calculations, forming a question that had many scientists around the world scratching their heads for decades.
Widely renowned in the global scientific community, Dr Elder’s achievements and exploits had gone largely unnoticed in his own backyard until his posthumous induction into the district Hall of Fame last month.
He was named Dux and the MacKenzie Villers Scholar at Timaru Main School, and then attended Timaru Boys’ High School, where he was named Dux and the top junior scholar in New Zealand.
Dr Elder graduated from Canterbury College (University of New Zealand), did his Ph.D in the Cavendish Lab at Cambridge University, was a one-time senior research fellow of Churchill College and later the professor of geophysics at the University of Manchester.
Over the course of his career, he published about 50 books and worked all over the world from England and the USA to Iraq, Greenland and most places in between.
He died in Timaru at Glenwood Home in 2022.
His widow Lynley Simmons accepted his Hall of Fame induction medal on his behalf.
She said she submitted his nomination.
‘‘I had seen [the display of Hall of Fame members] at the top of the piazza and had often thought before he died that he should be up there.
‘‘He was a proud Timaruvian.
‘‘I came back from a Thailand trip and thought I should do something about it, so I filled out the nomination form and sent all the bits and pieces.
‘‘The [Timaru District] council said they would accept that and asked if I could write a CV, so I did — it was three pages.’’
She said she wanted to make sure Dr Elder was remembered for more than just his academics.
‘‘I wanted to make a comment on what sort of person he was; with academics people think they are just living at the top of an ivory tower and talk in riddles.
‘‘He was a great conversationalist, he really liked talking to people, he loved teaching and languages and writing, writing, writing.
‘‘He was working on a book about the development of the battery and he wanted to turn that into a play.
‘‘He had a wide variety of interests and the little bugger was so good at everything, for example he said to me when he was in high school he got the gymnastics prize and couldn’t figure out why.’’
It was his innate curiosity that drew him to science, Ms Simmons said.
‘‘From the beginning he got up on a stool and took his grandmother’s gas hob to bits.
‘‘He was just so curious, why does that happen, why does it work?
‘‘I remember one of the first times he came over for dinner and I was making a salad and I had one of those salad spinners and he was in the kitchen talking to me and he just said ‘physics’.’’
She said Dr Elder would have encouraged everyone to just be a little more curious.
‘‘What John would want is for people to be interested in more than just their little lives and their cellphones.
‘‘Think about the world and maybe what you can do for it.
‘‘What are you interested in, what could you be interested in?
‘‘You’re missing out on so much if you’re not interested and curious.’’
