The books once interested me

coolboy

I have hundreds or probably over a thousand of books on my bookshelves. Most of those are my professional books in math and physics fields. I have three study rooms in my house full of books. One is in the basement where I usually stay in the hot summer time. The second one is on the attic floor that is warm and cozy in winter like now. The one on the main floor has a nice view of an outside field through the wall of glass windows. The main floor study room is the best place to stay in a rainy day or a snowy day when I can simultaneously enjoy the outside view that is changing constantly.

This thread is for the purpose of watering and will be updated as I continuously add the information of the books on my bookshelves to it.

coolboy

A few popular books on inversion or retrieval theories and applications in geophysics or atmospheric science:

Hanel, R. A., b. J. Conrath, D. E. Jennings, and R. E. Samuelson, 1992: Exploration of the Solar System by Infrared Remote Sensing. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 458 pp.
Houghton, J. T., F. W. Taylor and C. D. Rodgers, 1984: Remote Sounding of Atmospheres. Cambridge Univ. Press, 343 pp.
Menke, W., 1989: Geophysical Data Analysis: Discrete Inverse Theory. Revised Edition. Academic Press, Inc., 289 pp.
Rodgers, C. D., 2000: Inverse Methods for Atmospheric Sounding, Theory and Practice. World Scientific, London, 238 pp.
Twomey, S., 1970: Introduction to the Mathematics of Inversion in Remote Sensing and Indirect Measurement. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 243 pp.


In general, given known parameters such as the properties of materials or localized relationships among different parameters, a forward problem describes a spatial relationship and its temporal evolution of the physical state. On the other hand, an inverse or a retrieval problem is to find the values of those parameters or the localized relationship among different parameters built into those equations describing the forward problems.

For example, in the field of fluid mechanics or gasdynamics, the so-called Rankine-Hugoniot relations describe the mass, momentum and energy conservation laws across a shock. Given the values of gas constants and the localized equation of state (p=rho*R*T or p=(gamma-1)*rho*E for ideal gas) Rankine-Hugoniot relations can be used to solve many forward problems such as design good numerical schemes to solve the Euler equations. In the field of solid mechanics, on the other hand, Rankine-Hugoniot relations are often or also used to derive the localized equation of state, i.e., to find the parametric relationship between pressure and density for different materials. This is clearly an inverse problem. Here is a book that contains an overview on this subject:

Asay, J. R., and M. Shahinpoor (editors), 1993: High-Pressure Shock Compression of Solids. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 393 pp.

周华

Waiting for your updates

coolboy

Diaz, J. B. and S. I. Pai (editors), 1962: Fluid dynamics and applied mathematics (Proceedings of the symposium sponsered by the Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics, University of Maryland, April 28-29, 1961). Gordon and Breach, New York, 207 pp.


This book interested me for one of its co-editors S. I. Pai appeared to be a Chinese. In addition, almost all contributors were very famous scientists in the fields:

Theodore von Karman: Non-Linear Buckling of Thin Shells
Th. Theodorsen: The Structure of Turbulence
Alexander Weinstein: Singular Partial Differential Equations and Their Applications
K. O. Friedrichs: Differential Equations of Symmetric Type
P. C. Rosenbloom:  Singular Partial Differential Equations
J. M. Burgers: On Landau Damping in a Fully Ionized Plasma and Its Combination with Collision
Stanley Corrsin: Some Statistical Properties of the Product of a Turbulent First Order Reaction
E. L. Resler, Jr.: The Shock Tube and Chemical Kinetics
A. P. Calderon: Existence and Uniqueness Theorems for Systems of Partial Differential Equations
G. E. Uhlenbeck: Some Aspects of Kinetic Theory


It turned out that S. I. Pai’s Chinese name is 柏实义. One can find his information from Wikipedia:

柏实义（1913年－1996年)，美籍空气动力学家。生于江苏句容，自幼定居南京。1935年于中央大学电机系毕业获学士学位后，进入中央大学机械特别班（即航空工程研究生班），1937年毕业。1938年在麻省理工学院获航空工程硕士学位，1940年在加州理工学院获航空工程和高等数学博士学位。归国后回到中央大学任航空工程系教授，并出任第二任系主任。1947年赴美，先后在康乃尔大学、马里兰大学任教。

coolboy

In his paper, Theodore von Karman cited the following five papers associated with H. S. Tsien (钱学森):

Th. Von Karman and H. S. Tsien, 1939: The buckling of spherical shells by external pressure. J. Aero. Sci. Dec..
Th. Von Karman, L. G. Dunn, and H. S. Tsien, 1940: The influence of curvature on the buckling characteristics of structures. J. Aero. Sci. May.
Th. Von Karman and H. S. Tsien, 1941: The buckling of thin cylindrical shells. J. Aero. Sci. June.
H. S. Tsien, 1942: A theory for the buckling of thin shells. J. Aero. Sci. Aug.
H. S. Tsien, 1947: Lower buckling load in the non-linear buckling theory for thin shells. Quart Appl Math..

It is noted that the first three papers were along the same line of a new theory of nonlinear buckling of thin shells. In 1941, however, K. O. Friedrichs proposed a different concept, and then:

“Tsien adopted this definition and elaborated on it in his paper published in 1942. But in 1947 in a short note (Tsien 1947) he returns to our original concept which states that the lower limit of the buckling load is given by p_L and not by p_M.”


Another work by a Chinese scientist cited in Theodore von Karman’s paper was:

Y. C. Fung (冯元帧) and E. E. Sechler, 1960: Instability of thin elastic shells. Structural Mechanics, Pergamon Press.


The last contributing author G. E. Uhlenbeck was a famous physicist. He was known to many Chinese physicists for his works with two Chinese female students/collaborators Ming-Chen Wang (王明贞) and Cheng-Shu Wang (王承书).

coolboy

Theodore von Karman: “Tsien adopted this definition and elaborated on it in his paper published in 1942. But in 1947 in a short note (Tsien 1947) he returns to our original concept which states that the lower limit of the buckling load is given by p_L and not by p_M.”

In my opinion, Theodore von Karman was using the above statements to claim, either explicitly or implicitly, intentionally or unintentionally, more credit of the nonlinear buckling theory described by the three papers coauthored with H. S. Tsien. In most cases, the credit of a science paper will be shared nearly equally by all the authors. However, if one of the coauthors is more senior than the others, then he/she will get more credit for people generally attribute the originality of a new idea to the senior one and attribute the implementation of a new idea to the other less senior authors. It is often difficult for a young or junior scientist to get out of the shadow of his/her supervisor. It seems that Tsien’s 1942 and 1947 papers only showed that he failed to get out of von Karman’s shadow in the field of solid mechanics. I once described this matter along a similar line:

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高歌教授在国际刊物发表解决湍流世界难题的方法 [19楼]
http://www.cfluid.com/thread-125875-2-1.html

coolboy (2013-5-21):
所以说做研究，遇到一个好的导师，那导师给出了一个好的题目是非常、非常重要的！所谓好题目就是既能解，又重要，结果就很容易出名。沿着类似的思路继续做下去，一般也不错。缺点就是对同行来说，大家心知肚明那人一辈子脱不了导师的影子。这时若以为自己其实没有导师的指点也很利害，挑一个全新的题目也能象当初做论文时做得非常好，搞不好就出乱子了。高歌看来是一个例子，钱学森（的人体科学等）则显然是另一个例子。若想在新领域中要有所发展，有所创新，至少开始的时候应该放低姿态，从小东西一点点地了解、熟悉、研究起来。不过，对已成名的人来说，要做到这一点是很难的。
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coolboy

I mentioned one interesting book on this forum and now I copy the description:

[讨论]拉瓦尔喷管（Laval nozzle）中的声速究竟是什么？  [118楼]
http://www.cfluid.com/thread-116251-8-1.html

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在下一个帖子中，有人讲了一个“书缘”的故事：

书缘
http://bulo.hujiang.com/diary/873013/

我也接着讲了自己的一个“书缘”故事：

I also had numerous interesting experiences about books or coming across good and important books in unexpected ways. Universities usually have big libraries so that books in different fields are shelved at different locations because those libraries have so many books. I once visited a research institute that only had a small library. I stayed in the institution library at the break times. While checking on the books in my own field I came across a book on a nearby shelf in a different field that gave a much better description to the problems similar to those in my field. Later, that book and the experience not only brought me scientific fruits but also inspired and led me to other new fields.

我故事中提到的那本书就是讲解非平衡态物理非常好的一本书：

Mihalas, D., 1978: Stellar Atmospheres. 2nd ed. W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 632 pp.

这本书是天体物理学的名著，是不少天体物理学专业研究生的必读教科书，也是把我带进天体物理学领域的启蒙书。我在天体物理学领域里做过的工作中有一个就是求解与拉瓦尔喷管流动相关的研究。当然，那是自然界的天然喷管（所以也就有非热力学平衡、Monte Carlo模拟等内容）而不是实验室里的人造喷管（为发这个帖子才知道并翻了一下J.D.Anderson）。大家若google “Laval nozzle”，则其wikipedia网页上的介绍也提到了天体物理学中的拉瓦尔喷管。列出的第一篇参考文献也是关于天体物理学的流体力学：
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Laval_nozzle

天体物理学中对非平衡态物理及流体力学等的介绍及应用相对于工程流体力学来说视角上确实是要宽广一些。我开始在发这个帖子的时候就想（发帖主要目的，从标题就能看出），搞工程流体力学的人对拉瓦尔喷管流中的绝热推导的这一特例可能很熟，以致于达到了熟视无睹的程度，可能只有很少人会知道在更一般的非绝热条件下问题原本应该是怎样的。

coolboy

Since I learnt a lot from D. Mihalas’ book of “Stellar Atmospheres”, naturally, I would buy his other books to see whether there was more interesting stuff to learn. Later, I bought the following book by D. Mihalas that I mentioned before but did not spend much time on it.

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[讨论]量子力学和流体力学有多大联系？  [42楼]
http://www.cfluid.com/thread-45337-3-5.html

下一本书的第四章(Relativistic Fluid Flow) 和第七章(The Equations of Radiation Hydrodynamics)就推导了包含相对论效应的流体方程。基本思路同相对论里推导场方程类似，关键是找出四维空间的应力-能量张量。

Mihalas, D., and B. Weibel-Milhalas, 1984: Foundations of Radiation Hydrodynamics. Oxford Univ. Press, 718 pp.
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周华

coolboy 发表于 2014-11-28 15:13
Theodore von Karman: “Tsien adopted this definition and elaborated on it in his paper published i ...

It is the academic viewpoint, that a good supervisor usually has a good understanding and complete picture of area he works in, therefore he is capable of pointing out the prosperous direction for his students. But in the real world, the standard of a good supervisor is frequently altered as 'more opportunities'.

coolboy

周华 发表于 2014-11-29 22:18
It is the academic viewpoint, that a good supervisor usually has a good understanding and comple ...

I agree on both points. Specifically, “a good understanding and complete picture of area” means a long-term effort in study and research. It is very hard to find a shortcut in scientific research. Often, “more opportunities” means “more social connections”, which I think is true in both eastern and western societies.

coolboy

I mentioned one interesting book on LASG forum and now I copy the description:

关于全球气候变暖  [79楼]
http://bbs.lasg.ac.cn/bbs/thread-42150-8-1.html

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Thank marsyas for the interesting information. I have an original copy of IPCC’s first report published in 1990 on my bookshelves. Therefore, it has also been 20 years since the first IPCC report was published:

Climate Change - The IPCC Scientific Assessment
Report Prepared for IPCC by Working Group 1
Edited by J. T. Houghton, G. J. Jenkins and J. J. Ephraums
(Meteorological Office, Bracknell, United Kingdom)

“Several hundred working scientists from 25 countries have participated in the preparation and review of the scientific data.”

There were 11 reviewers coming from China, they were [Also, 72 from USA, 9 from Japan and 4 from Soviet Union]

Yihui Ding(丁一汇)
Cong-bin Fu(符淙斌)
Guangy-yu Shi(石广玉)
Shi-yan Tao(陶诗言)
Ming-xing Wang(王明星)
Du-zheng Ye(叶笃正)
Chong-guang Yuan(袁重光)
Qing-cun Zeng(曾庆存)
Xue-hong Zhang(张学洪)
Zongci Zhao(赵宗慈)
Xiuji Zhou(周秀骥)

Some of them plus W. Su (Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Science, CAS, 中国科学院生态环境研究中心) were also contributor authors to various sections.

There were totally 11 sections in the first report. There was one lead author from China for the writing of Section 4:

4. Validation of Climate Models
W. L. Gates, P. R. Rowntree and Q-C. Zeng

in which the following well known (I mean well known to the world for many years) work was cited:

Yeh, T.C., S. Y. Tao, and M. C. Li, 1959: The abrupt change of circulation over the Northern Hemisphere during June and October. In: “The Atmosphere and the Sea in Motion”, 249-267.
[叶笃正、陶诗言、李麦村]

coolboy

The IPCC report on climate change was updated every four years. In the 1994 report, only the lead author (John T. Houghton) remains the same:


Climate Change 1994 - The Radiative Forcing of Climate Change and an Evaluation of the IPCC IS92 Emission Scenarios
Edited by J. T. Houghton, L. G. Meira Filho, J. Bruce, Hoesung Lee, B. A. Callander, H. Haites, N. Harris, and K. Maskell.


J. T. Houghton is a world renowned atmospheric physicist for his brief-concise (简洁) and thus popular textbook in the field:

Houghton, J. T., 1977: The Physics of Atmospheres. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.
Houghton, J. T., 1986: The Physics of Atmospheres. 2nd ed. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 271 pp.
Houghton, J. T., 2002: The Physics of Atmospheres. 3rd ed. Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 320 pp.

The first edition of his textbook was translated into Chinese right after its publication so J. T. Houghton was known to many Chinese people in the field of atmospheric sciences as well. I read part of that Chinese textbook when I was a student in China. Later, I bought both the second and third editions almost immediately after their publications.

When I was a graduate student, I took a course of “Atmospheric Radiation”. I was very surprised to find that Houghton’s another book was listed as a reference book for the course:

Houghton, J. T., and S. D. Smith, 1966: Infra-red Physics. Oxford Univ. Press (Clarendon), London and New York, 319 pp.

I was very surprised because this book was supposed to belong to a totally different field of designing infrarad instrumentation, which is almost completely different from the field of the atmospheric physics. I learnt for the first time through this concrete example that people’s research or study can be so diversified and yet still of high quality. Later, in an atmospheric remote sensing course, Houghton’s another book was again listed as a main reference book:

Houghton, J. T., F. W. Taylor and C. D. Rodgers, 1984: Remote Sounding of Atmospheres. Cambridge Univ. Press, 343 pp.

coolboy

The coauthors of the above book of “Remote Sounding of Atmospheres” authored more specialized books on atmospheric remote sensing, corresponding to Volumes 2 and 3 of a book series of “Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics”:

Coustenis, A., and F. W. Taylor, 1999: Titan: The Earth-Like Moon. World Scientific, London, 330 pp. (Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics – Vol. 1)

Rodgers, C. D., 2000: Inverse Methods for Atmospheric Sounding, Theory and Practice. World Scientific, London, 238 pp. (Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics – Vol. 2)

Lopez-Puertas, M., and F. W. Taylor, 2001: Non-LTE Radiative Transfer in the Atmosphere. World Scientific Pub. Co., Singapore, 487 pp. (Series on Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics – Vol. 3)


The textbook by Clive Rodgers is highly recommended.

coolboy

Nowaydays, there are many science books including many new different science monograph series by different publishers because the popularization of personal computers makes the publication much easier than before. An old and high quality science series in geophysics is the “International Geophysics Series”. Two popular textbooks in this series by the authors with Chinese heritage are:

Yeh, K. C.(叶公节), and C. H. Liu(刘兆汉), 1972: Theory of Ionospheric Waves. Academic Press, New York, 464 pp. (International Geophysics Series – Vol. 17)

Liou, K. N.(廖国南), 1980: An Introduction to Atmospheric Radiation. Academic Press, New York, 392 pp. (International Geophysics Series – Vol. 26)

coolboy

There is one atmospheric scientist in China (Qing-cun Zeng, 曾庆存) who, like J. T. Houghton, has also worked in several science fields that are not so closely related:

曾庆存，1974：大气红外遥测原理，科学出版社。（missing or misplaced from my bookshelves)。
曾庆存，1979：数值天气预报的数学物理基础，第一卷，543页，科学出版社。

Generally speaking, multidisciplinary researches are branched out from one’s root science major. There is a difference in terms of their root science majors between Houghton and Zeng. Houghton’s root science major is physics whereas Zeng’s root science major is mathematics. Such a clear difference is reflected from the materials and styles of their writings. I believe physics and mathematics are the only two fields that can form root science majors for multidisciplinary researches. One cannot conduct serious multidisciplinary science researches based on a root science major of, say, philosophy or “Quotations from ...”.

学习小能手_二流

i saw your name in CFD-online.