| An Introduction to Astrophysical Hydrodynamics | Hardcoverby Steven N. Shore (Author)
| List Price: | $66.95 | |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | Academic Press | | Page Count: | 452 Pages | | Publication Date: | May 04, 1992 | | Sales Rank: | 2,595,351nd |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
This book is an introduction to astrophysical hydrodynamics for both astronomy and physics students. It provides a comprehensive and unified view of the general problems associated with fluids in a cosmic context, with a discussion of fluid dynamics and plasma physics. It is the only book on hydrodynamics that addresses the astrophysical context. Researchers and students will find this work to be an exceptional reference. Contents include chapters on irrotational and rotational flows, turbulence, magnetohydrodynamics, and instabilities. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 1 review)
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Great as a teaching reference, but not as a stand alone text - way too broad by Utah Blaine (Somewhere on Trexalon in District 268)  4 Stars
July 27, 2006
The level of this text lies somewhere in between a basic text on hydrodynamics and an advanced reference of use to graduate students and professionals. The author starts by deriving the basic equations of hydrodynamics, then discusses individual topics such as viscosity, supersonic flow, turbulence, and MHD. Some typical astrophysical examples of each of these phenomenon follow the basic discussion. This is not a good text from which to learn hydrodynamics. Fundamentally, way too much material is covered in this text, none of it very deeply. It is just too broad in my opinion. For teaching an undergraduate course, one would be much better off with a more conventional introductory fluid mechanics text such as Batchelor, perhaps gearing some of the lectures to the dynamics of compressible fluids. Basic ideas of hydrodynamics get lost in a sea of astrophysical applications. For a graduate level course, this book has some limitations as well as it doesn't really take the student close to the level of current research. This is only the starting point for an advanced student. One thing I found really annoying about this text was that the author spent too much time trying to write cute phrases (one section is entitled `A Quodlibet of Applications of Shocks to Astrophysical Problems', for example). This is a great reference/supplement for someone who is teaching a course in astrophysical hydrodynamics for ideas about topics and problems to discuss. A better title for this book may be `An Intermediate Survey of Topics in Astrophysical Hydrodynamics'.
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