The large number of text books on the theory of sound deal principally with periodic disturbances such as harmonic wave trains and standing waves and give scant attention to aperiodic disturbances with clearly defined fronts, conveniently called sound pulses. This monograph attempts to fill this gap by providing an up-to-date description of the theory of sound pulses and its developments. The treatment is based on the thoery of linear partial differential equations of hyperbolic type - a method which is frequently simpler and more effective than the commoner one of resolving the pulse into harmonic components by Fourier analysis; this is especially true of any treatment of pulse fronts as wave fronts in the sense of geometrical optics. The individual chapters deal with the equations of motion, wave fronts and characteristics, geometrical acoustics and their application to reflection problems and the diffraction of a pulse by a wedge, circular cylinder, sphere and other objects. The book will also be of interest to readers concerned with other aspects of wave propagation, such as electromagnetic waves.
