James Lighthill – författare

A comprehensive textbook in which the author describes the science of waves in liquids and gases. Drawing on a subject of enormous extent and variety, he provides his readers with a thorough analysis of the most important and representative types of waves including sound waves, shock waves, waterwaves of all kinds, and the so-called internal waves (inside atmospheres and oceans) due to intensity stratification. Emphasis throughout is on the most generally useful fundamental ideas of wave science, including the principles of how waves interact with flows. This standard work on one of the great subdivisions of the dynamics of fluids is lucidly written and will be invaluable to engineers, physicists, geophysicists, applied mathematicians or any research worker concerned with wave motions or fluid fllows. It is especially suitable as a textbook for courses at the final year undergraduate or graduate level.

This volume presents a survey of our state of knowledge of the physical and dynamical processes involved in the Asian monsoon. Although traditionally the main emphasis has been on the study of the atmospheric component, it has long been known that the oceans play a vitally important part in determining the occurrence of this spectacular seasonal event. A scientific study of this phenomenon involves a detailed investigation of the dynamical processes which occur in both the atmosphere and the ocean, on timescales on up to at least a year and on spatial scales from a few hundred kilometres or so up to that of the global atmospheric and oceanic circulations. The editors present a coherent survey of each of the meteorological, oceanographic and hydrological aspects and of their implications for weather forecasting and flood prediction. Monsoon Dynamics is a timely survey of a dramatic meteorological phenomenon which will interest meteorologists, climatologists and geophysicists.

The acronym VAN refers to Drs Varotsos, Alexopoulos and Nomicos, members of a group based in the University of Athens and led by Professor Varotsos (head of the Physics Department) which for over a decade has sought to use electric-field measurements between electrodes buried in the earth to predict earthquakes in Greece over periods of order one month or less. But is such “short-term” prediction achievable by the VAN approach (or by any other)? This book is an objective collection of the arguments for — and the counterarguments against — that approach, intended to help scientific readers arrive at their own answers to this important question, as well as to others (including that of VAN's “export” potential).