In the summer of 1961, I worked as a student research assistant at Victoria’s Pacific Naval LaboratoryPacific Naval Laboratory (PNL), a unit of the then Canadian Defence Research BoardCanadian Defence Research Board. Although I had never studied fluid mechanics as an undergraduate student at the University of Alberta, I was assigned the problem of describing mathematically the flow of a fluid past a cone that was used to measure turbulence in the ocean. It was a challenging problem as I first had to learn the basics of fluid mechanicsFluid mechanics and the concept of a boundary layer. But I had excellent guidance from my supervisor, John WeaverJohn Weaver who had recently joined the research staff of PNL. This project was a turning point for me as when I later went on to do a PhD in applied mathematics at Harvard UniversityHarvard University, I decided that I would like to do a PhD thesis in some area of fluid mechanicsFluid mechanics.