Fluid Mechanics: Course of Theoretical Physics

by L. D. Landau

Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
ISBN: 0750627670

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Book Info

This is the most comprehensive introductory graduate or advanced undergraduate text in fluid mechanics available. It builds up from the fundamentals, often in a general way, to widespread applications, to technology and geophysics.

New to this second edition are discussions on the universal dimensions similarity scaling for the laminar boundary layer equations and on the generalized vector field derivatives. In addition, new material on the generalized streamfunction treatment shows how streamfunction may be used in three-dimensional flows. Finally, a new Computational Fluid Dynamics chapter enables compulations of some simple flows and provides entry to more advanced literature.

• Basic introduction to the subject of fluid mechanics, intended for undergraduate and beginning graduate students of science and engineering.
• Includes topics of special interest for geophysicists and to engineers.
• New and generalized treatment of similar laminar boundary layers, streamfunctions for three-dimensional flows, vector field derivatives, and gas dynamics. Also a new generalized treatment of boundary conditions in fluid mechanics, and expanded treatment of viscous flows.

Customer Reviews

Landau & Lifshz "Course of Theoretical Physics" is a famous and respected set of books in Physics. Unfortunately, Butterworth-Heinemann, who currently prints those books in English, prints them with very poor quality. The books seem to be "printed" in old copy machines and the paper used is also a cheap one. In many pages, it is really hard to read the text, due to such poor printing.

This is the Volume 6 of the famous Course of Theoretical Physics by L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz. All serious students of theoretical physics must possess the ten volumes of this excellent Course, which cover in detail and rigour practically all the branches of theoretical physics. The Volume 6 treats the theory of the motion of liquids and gases. The book opens with the theory of ideal fluids and drives the attention of the reader to a large amount of topics, which are discussed in greater detail and, moreover, discussing with details topics not usually found in other similar books, such as turbulence, sound, fluid dynamics of combustion, relativistic fluid dynamics and the dynamics of superfluids. The book is written in a language proper of a theoretical physicist, but owing to its clarity, it can be read without problems for other scientists. A superb book!

This is another fantastic book from the Landau-Lifshitz series. I studied it in depth and then taught from it. I don't think there is any book of PHYSICAL quantum mechanics comparable to it, not even the classical Sommerfeld's "Mechanics of Defromable Bodies". What I like most in this book is the constant use of thermodynamics, allowing the treatment of much more real (and interesting) systems. For instance, it derives quite early conditions for the establishment of atmospheric thermal inversion, a problem of great practical importance in our days. The introduction of the Reynold's number is also superior to any other I've met. Relativistic fluid mechanics receives also a very good treatment, being an excellent preparation for relativistic cosmology. In this book Landau presents his ideas on turbulence, what is called now the Landau-Kolmogoroff turbulence theory. This is being challenged, after recent progresses on deterministic chaos, by different theories, l! ike that of Ruelle-Takens. Still, in order to really enjoy the progresses in this field, you should know both, and the perfect source of information for Landau-Kolmogoroff theory is Landau's book.

Plike the other books of this series a great book full of facinating thoughts and calculations. though it is very dense and the nomencature is different from the usual. one of the big values of the book lies in the fact that it gives a physics point of view on a typically more engineering type field.