Description

Book Synopsis
This textbook — incorporated with many illuminating examples and exercises — is aimed at graduate students of physical sciences and engineering. The purpose is to provide a background of physics and underlying mathematics for the concept of rays, filling the gap between mathematics and physics textbooks for a coherent treatment of all topics. The authors' emphasis and extremely good presentation of the theory of characteristics, which defines the rays, accentuate the beauty and versatility of this theory. To this end, the rigour of the formulation — by a pure mathematician's standards — is downplayed to highlight the physical meaning and to make the subject accessible to a wider audience. The authors describe in detail the theory of characteristics for different types of differential equations, the applications to wave propagation in different types of media, and the phenomena such as caustics.

Table of Contents
Characteristic Equations of First-Order Linear Partial Differential Equations; Characteristic Equations of Second-Order Linear Partial Differential Equations; Characteristic Equations of First-Order Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations; Propagation of Discontinuities; Caustics;

Wavefronts And Rays As Characteristics And

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    A Hardback by Michael A Slawinski, Andrej Bona

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      Book details

      Publisher World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd
      Published 13 May 2011
      ISBN-13 9789814295512
      978-9814295512
      ISBN-10 9814295515
      Also in:
      Classical mechanics

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      This textbook — incorporated with many illuminating examples and exercises — is aimed at graduate students of physical sciences and engineering. The purpose is to provide a background of physics and underlying mathematics for the concept of rays, filling the gap between mathematics and physics textbooks for a coherent treatment of all topics. The authors' emphasis and extremely good presentation of the theory of characteristics, which defines the rays, accentuate the beauty and versatility of this theory. To this end, the rigour of the formulation — by a pure mathematician's standards — is downplayed to highlight the physical meaning and to make the subject accessible to a wider audience. The authors describe in detail the theory of characteristics for different types of differential equations, the applications to wave propagation in different types of media, and the phenomena such as caustics.

      Table of Contents
      Characteristic Equations of First-Order Linear Partial Differential Equations; Characteristic Equations of Second-Order Linear Partial Differential Equations; Characteristic Equations of First-Order Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations; Propagation of Discontinuities; Caustics;

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