David George Crighton (15 November 1942, Llandudno, Wales - 12 April 2000, Cambridge) was a British mathematician and physicist.

Life

Crighton was born in Llandudno. His mother, Violet Grace Garrison, had been sent because of the bombing of London during World War II. He didn't became interested in mathematics until his last two years at Watford Grammar school . He entered St John's College, Cambridge in 1961 and started lecturing at Woolwich Polytechnic (today University of Greenwich) in 1964, having completed only his bachelor.

A few years later he met John Ffowcs Williams and started to work for him at Imperial College, London, while simultaneously studying for his doctorate (rewarded in 1969) at the same place. In 1974, he was appointed as a Research Fellow in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

Work

In his first paper, Crighton studied the sound wave associated with turbulent flow over a discontinuous surface formed by two semi-infinite flexible planes.

Sources and further reading