Dragging cylinders in slow viscous flows

The so-called ``dragging problem'' in slow viscous fluids is an important basic flow with many applications. In two dimensions, the Stokes paradox means there is no solution to the dragging problem for a cylinder in free space. The presence of walls changes this; the solutions exist, but are not easy to find without purely numerical methods. This talk describes new ``transform methods'' that produce convenient, semi-analytical solutions to dragging problems for cylinders in various geometries. We apply the techniques to low-Reynolds-number swimming where dragging problem solutions can be combined with the reciprocal theorem to compute swimmer dynamics in confined domains.