You might be interested in this bet on the LongNow site: http://longbets.org/753/ http://longbets.org/753/ Some people think that wind tunnels will be obsolet

You might be interested in this bet on the LongNow site: http://longbets.org/753/ http://longbets.org/753/ Some people think that wind tunnels will be obsoleted by computational fluid dynamics within the decade. Others think that the problems with CFD are not a lack of compute power but a lack of comprehensive understanding and modeling of the physics at play, and expect that wind tunnels will be with us for quite a while. (Personally, I believe in the progress of technology and expect an eventual if not near-term breakthrough in CFD software will eventually obsolete the wind tunnel, but I also think that institutional inertia will keep a lot of wind tunnels and businesses that purchase time in them in operation for a decade or more after CFD's big breakthrough...)