Reduced MHD and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics

Recent work has shown a relationship between between the equations of Reduced Magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD), used to model magnetic fusion laboratory experiments, and incompressible magnetoconvection (IMC), employed in the simulation of astrophysical fluid dynamics (AFD), which means that the two systems are mathematically equivalent in certain geometries. Limitations on the modelling of RMHD, which were found over twenty years ago, are reviewed for an AFD audience, together with hitherto unpublished material on the role of finite-time singularities in the discrete equations used to model fluid dynamical systems. Possible implications for turbulence modelling are mentioned.