In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a nonlinear, self-reinforcing, localized wave packet that is strongly stable, in that it preserves its shape while propagating freely, at constant velocity, and recovers it even after collisions with other such localized wave packets. Its remarkable stability can be traced to a balanced cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. Solitons were subsequently found to provide stable solutions of a wide class of weakly nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations describing physical systems.
Solitary wave in a laboratory wave channel
John Scott Russell FRSE FRS FRSA was a Scottish civil engineer, naval architect and shipbuilder who built Great Eastern in collaboration with Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He made the discovery of the wave of translation that gave birth to the modern study of solitons, and developed the wave-line system of ship construction.
John Scott Russell in 1847
Solitary wave in a laboratory wave channel.
John Scott Russell (builder), Henry Wakefield (Russell's assistant), Isambard Kingdom Brunel (designer) and Lord Derby at the launching of Great Eastern.
Maiden voyage of the Bodensee Trajekt, 1869.