The Physics of Astrophysics Volume II: Gas Dynamics [Hardcover]

Frank H. Shu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1992 | ISBN-10: 0935702652 | ISBN-13: 978-0935702651 | Edition: First Edition

This two-volume text is for new graduates on astronomy courses who need to get to grips with the physics involved in the subject. Four problem sets, averaging three problems per set, accompany each volume. The problems expand on the material covered in the texts and represent the level of calculational skill needed to write scientific papers in contemporary astrophysics. Volume I. "Radiation" deals with the emission, absorption, and scattering of radiation by matter, radiative transfer, statistical physics, classical electrodynamics, and atomic and molecular structure. Volume II. "Gas Dynamics", is a self-contained textbook. It can be used as the text for a one semester course on the interactions of matter and radiation and electromagnetic fields of macroscopic scale in both the strongly collisionil and collisionless regimes. It covers single-fluid shocks, and fronts; mapetohydrodynamics and plasma physics, their applications to self-graviting spherical masses, accretion disks, spiral density waves, star formation, and dynamo theory. Over 200 photos, line drawings, and tables amplify the major points of the text.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Frank Shu is a Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1968. Shu has written a number of expository articles for the lay public, and is the author of a best-selling introductory textbook in astronomy and astrophysics, The Physical Universe. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Academia Sinica.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 476 pages
• Publisher: University Science Books; First Edition edition (December 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0935702652
• ISBN-13: 978-0935702651
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,350,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, May 26, 2000

By 

Pedro Osuna Alcalaya (Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Physics of Astrophysics Volume II: Gas Dynamics (Hardcover)

I was very dissapointed to see a rating on this book of only two little stars, so I've decided to express my opinion as well, for I believe this book deserves a much better qualification. The book gives an excellent overview in many of the most important aspects of the theory of gas dynamics as applied to astrophysics. The clarity with which the author expresses the underlying physical phenomena is amazing. You even find it "easy" the way in which fluid equations are deduced by taking the different momenta of the statistical distribution function of the fluid, or why a supersonic flow governed by a hyperbolic PDE is converted to a subsonic one governed by an elliptic PDE after passage through a shock wave in the stationary case. It's true that it doesn't go into too much detail; if it would, the book should have been at least of the size of the "Gravitation" (by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler) and it wouldn't easily fit anywhere. However, the references to excellent books on all the touched subjects have been meticulously selected and should be consulted by anyone interested in expanding the knowledge on any specific topic of the ones covered by the book. And for your curiosity, if you want to know whether Mr. Shu is a competent astrophysicist or not, just go to the Astronomical Data Service online and search for his name. You'll discover quite a big number of high quality papers on different subjects...