Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the third edition
- Notes for reference
- 1 Free vibrations
- 2 Free vibrations in physics
- 3 Damping
- 4 Damping in physics
- 5 Forced vibrations
- 6 Forced vibrations in physics
- 7 Anharmonic vibrations
- 8 Two-coordinate vibrations
- 9 Non-dispersive waves
- 10 Non-dispersive waves in physics
- 11 Fourier theory
- 12 Dispersion
- 13 Water waves
- 14 Electromagnetic waves
- 15 De Broglie waves
- 16 Solitary waves
- 17 Plane waves at boundaries
- 18 Diffraction
- Answers to problems and hints for solution
- Constants and units
- Index
Preface to the third edition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the first edition
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the third edition
- Notes for reference
- 1 Free vibrations
- 2 Free vibrations in physics
- 3 Damping
- 4 Damping in physics
- 5 Forced vibrations
- 6 Forced vibrations in physics
- 7 Anharmonic vibrations
- 8 Two-coordinate vibrations
- 9 Non-dispersive waves
- 10 Non-dispersive waves in physics
- 11 Fourier theory
- 12 Dispersion
- 13 Water waves
- 14 Electromagnetic waves
- 15 De Broglie waves
- 16 Solitary waves
- 17 Plane waves at boundaries
- 18 Diffraction
- Answers to problems and hints for solution
- Constants and units
- Index
Summary
For this edition I have added one new topic, made a number of miscellaneous changes intended to improve the presentation and clarify some of the arguments, and adjusted a few emphases to attune with the changing times. (Microwave ovens are now commonplace, while ballistic galvanometers have been consigned to the laboratory basement.) To keep the length reasonable I have relegated to the problems a few peripheral topics, such as Lorentzians.
The teaching of vibrational physics at undergraduate level cannot ignore for ever the revolutionary ideas grouped under the title ‘chaos’. I believe that a straightforward description of the physical phenomena will provide the student with a platform from which to approach the more detailed, but also more abstract, consideration of these matters in terms of trajectories and attractors in phase space. I have therefore expanded chapter 7 to include a simple discussion of large-amplitude forced vibrations, introducing chaotic vibrations and related non-linear effects.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Vibrations and Waves in Physics , pp. xviiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993