I'll agree with you that culture is a major factor and that in a plausible alternative history Kolmogorov and others who worked on fluids would be better known.

I'll agree with you that culture is a major factor and that in a plausible alternative history Kolmogorov and others who worked on fluids would be better known. However, I disagree on the point that people see the impacts of modern physics more readily: > Maybe if we lived in a different world (underwater?), everyone might have heard of Kolmogorov instead. We are immersed in a fluid: air. One could argue that the 3 orders of magnitude difference in density could be a factor in popularity, but I'm not so sure. > one can at least appreciate the engineering achievements I don't think that (e.g.) aerospace engineering had worse achievements or marketing than nuclear weapons. Around and after WWII both made huge and impressive advances. One could argue that aerospace engineering was more visible as well, with flying being a common mode of transportation and the exploration of space being of popular interest. For some reason that doesn't seem to make fluid dynamics as interesting to most folks as modern physics. (Though I certainly would claim that the space race in particular improved the standing of fluid dynamics.)