Wave Motion (Texts in Applied Mathematics, No. 24)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview of Basic Wave Theory
Review: This is book is a little strange but still very good. It could be thought of as a modern version of Lighthill's "Waves in Fluids". It first assumes that you are familiar with a pretty wide range of mathematical tools, and also that you have the necessary experience to handle long calculations. If you're comfortable with the method of stationary phase and contour integration but you've never studied acoustics or shocks, then this book is probably a worthwhile read. It's also good as an introduction to more advanced areas such as solitons, although the book by Johnson and Drazin (Solitons: An Introduction) is probably a better resource. I would have liked a chapter on waves of importance in geophysics though, such as internal gravity waves, Coriolis waves, and Rossby waves. It would have made the book an even better resource.

Rating:
Summary: Wave Motion
Review: This modern book has considerable breadth and depth, and is ideally suited as a reference text as well as a text for upper class under graduate and graduate courses. It treats acoustic waves, waves in elastic media, fluid dynamical waves, electromagnetic waves and more. The material is clearly presented, including excellent illustrations. At the same time, it is mathematically rigorous and thereby equally appropriate as a text for applied mathematics as well as engineering courses and study. Each of the book's twelve chapters ends with a set of homework problems, for which the authors have assembled a comprehensive well organized instructor's solution manual.