Customer Reviews

Wind Waves: Their Generation and Propagation on the Ocean Surface (Dover Earth Science)

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This book, on the mathematics of the generation and propagation of waves on the ocean was introduced to me while I worked at the Point Mugu, Naval Air Station 40 years ago, as a Mathematician whose job it was to "score" test fired Missile shots off the nearby California islands. I have re-read it just to write this review.

It is a rare mathematical treat indeed, as it seamlessly and painlessly introduces a very complex topic with ease and grace; and then it gradually ascends to rather incredible mathematical complexity. Altogether the book is so well "put together" that it is almost poetic in its discourse.

It covers all aspects of the wave propagation phenomenon and introduces several variant formulations, from "solutions by addition," to full-scale Fourier Transforms, and everything in between, all of which are fully developed and illustrated with examples in three-dimensional graphics.

The first edition was published in 1965, and by now is a well-deserved collector's item. It is one of the few mathematics books, that is a member of my hall of fame of books. Ten Stars

This book had been sitting on my shelf for close to 20 years before I picked it up recently for a project. One of the most useful aspects of this wonderful book is the detailed outlining of long-unavailable classic papers by Pierson, Tick, Sverdrup, Munk, Neumann, and other early practitioners and developers of random wave theories. The amount of detail offered is tremendous, and the literary style is as clear as those of the writers who Kinsman no doubt admired. Furthermore, the amount of detail and explanation is unusual for what is a highly mathematical treatment of this theory. I'm chagrined that I haven't thought to look into using this book earlier, as I think it would have saved me a lot of blind stumbling in earlier work. Finally, the book itself lays out all the topic material in a delightful, "you-are-there" narrative. Much of it is as enjoyable as a good history book, and Kinsman makes his love of "private science" (the individual thought processes by which scientists make their discoveries) apparent. As someone who works in waves, I have a ton of wave books. This is the only one I pick up for both detailed study and casual reading.