Wallace Dean Hayes (September 4, 1918 – March 2, 2001) was a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University and one of the world's leading theoretical aerodynamicists, whose numerous and fundamental contributions to the theories of supersonic and hypersonic flow and wave motion strongly influenced the design of aircraft at supersonic speeds and missiles at hypersonic speeds.
In a series of publications beginning in 1947 with his Ph.D. thesis under Theodore von Kármán at the California Institute of Technology[1] , he developed a theory of supersonic flow called the area rule which strongly influenced the design of high-speed aircraft.
His work also provided the first understanding of the behavior of delta wing aircraft flying just above the speed of sound.
Many of his developments appeared in his book Hypersonic Flow Theory, co-written with Ronald Probstein and first published in 1959.
He made important contributions to the understanding of sonic booms and served on numerous NASA advisory committees on the subject.