Customer Reviews

Lattice-Gas Cellular Automata and Lattice Boltzmann Models: An Introduction (Lecture Notes in Mathematics)

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This is an outstanding book for anyone concerned with computational models of real physical processes (digital mechanics or digital physics). It is accessible to anyone with a bachelor's degree in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or physics. It is also accessible to others with a few years of math courses. Lattice gasses and lattice boltzmann machines are the natural extensions of cellular automata such as the game of life.

This book is extremely well structured -as apparent from its table of contents. It describes and motivates the evolution from cellular automata to lattice-gas cellular automata to lattice Boltzmann schemes. It tells its story in a very brief yet lucid way. The text points to valuable references for further reading or for further explanation.

The main drawback is that -after all- it sometimes really are 'just' lecture notes in mathematics (being an aid mainly for those who follow the lectures). *Some* of the important derivations are very short and formal, with implicit mathematical shortcuts, and without giving any physical interpretation of the main formula's. In addition, once too often the reader is referred to the scientific literature -which is not always easily accessible. In other words: the book is not self-contained.

Nevertheless, I truly enjoyed reading the book from back to back, even though I had to work hard to get through some sections.