Epilogue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Now that we have learnt basic mechanisms and elementary interplay between non-linearity, dissipation and dispersion in fluid mechanics, where can we go from here? It is important to recognize that this book describes only a few basic types of flow and leaves whole sets of physical phenomena outside of its scope. It is impossible to fit all of fluid mechanics into the format of a single story with a few memorable protagonists. Here is a brief guide to further reading, more details can be found in the endnotes.
A comparable elementary textbook (which is about twice as big) is that of Acheson [2]; it provides extra material and some alternative explanations on the subjects described in Chapters 1 and 2. On the subjects of Chapter 3, a timeless classic is the book by Lighthill [15]. For a deep and comprehensive study of fluid mechanics as a branch of theoretical physics one cannot do better than use another timeless classic, volume VI of the Landau–Lifshitz course [14]. Apart from a more detailed treatment of the subjects covered here, it contains a variety of different flows, a detailed presentation of the boundary layer theory, the theory of diffusion and thermal conductivity in fluids, relativistic and superfluid hydrodynamics, etc. In addition to reading about fluids, it is worth looking at flows, which is as appealing aesthetically as it is instructive and helpful in developing a physicist's intuition.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fluid MechanicsA Short Course for Physicists, pp. 157 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011