James Beck - Böcker

Since its publication more than 15 years ago, Heat Conduction Using Green’s Functions has become the consummate heat conduction treatise from the perspective of Green’s functions—and the newly revised Second Edition is poised to take its place. Based on the authors’ own research and classroom experience with the material, this book organizes the solution of heat conduction and diffusion problems through the use of Green’s functions, making these valuable principles more accessible. As in the first edition, this book applies extensive tables of Green’s functions and related integrals, and all chapters have been updated and revised for the second edition, many extensively. Details how to access the accompanying Green’s Function Library site, a useful web-searchable collection of GFs based on the appendices in this book The book reflects the authors’ conviction that although Green’s functions were discovered in the nineteenth century, they remain directly relevant to 21st-century engineers and scientists. It chronicles the authors’ continued search for new GFs and novel ways to apply them to heat conduction. New features of this latest edition— Expands the introduction to Green’s functions, both steady and unsteady Adds a section on the Dirac Delta Function Includes a discussion of the eigenfunction expansion method, as well as sections on the convergence speed of series solutions, and the importance of alternate GF Adds a section on intrinsic verification, an important new tool for obtaining correct numerical values from analytical solutionsA main goal of the first edition was to make GFs more accessible. To facilitate this objective, one of the authors has created a companion Internet site called the Green’s Function Library, a web-searchable collection of GFs. Based on the appendices in this book, this library is organized by differential equation, geometry, and boundary condition. Each GF is also identified and cataloged according to a GF numbering system. The library also contains explanatory material, references, and links to related sites, all of which supplement the value of Heat Conduction Using Green’s Functions, Second Edition as a powerful tool for understanding.

When the U.S. Public Health Service endorsed water fluoridation in 1950, there was little evidence of its safety. Now, six decades later and after most countries have rejected the practice, more than 70 percent of Americans, as well as 200 million people worldwide, are drinking fluoridated water. The Center for Disease Control and the American Dental Association continue to promote it--and even mandatory statewide water fluoridation--despite increasing evidence that it is not only unnecessary, but potentially hazardous to human health.In this timely and important book, Dr. Paul Connett, Dr. James Beck, and Dr. H. Spedding Micklem take a new look at the science behind water fluoridation and argue that just because the dental and medical establishments endorse a public health measure doesn't mean it's safe. In the case of water fluoridation, the chemicals that go into the drinking water that more than 180 million people drink each day are not even pharmaceutical grade, but rather a hazardous waste product of the phosphate fertilizer industry. It is illegal to dump this waste into the sea or local surface water, and yet it is allowed in our drinking water. To make matters worse, this program receives no oversight from the Food and Drug Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency takes no responsibility for the practice. And from an ethical standpoint, say the authors, water fluoridation is a bad medical practice: individuals are being forced to take medication without their informed consent, there is no control over the dose, and no monitoring of possible side effects.At once painstakingly documented and also highly readable, The Case Against Fluoride brings new research to light, including links between fluoride and harm to the brain, bones, and endocrine system, and argues that the evidence that fluoridation reduces tooth decay is surprisingly weak.