Linear and Nonlinear Waves

G B Whitham Chichester: J Wiley 1974 pp xvi + 636 price £12.15 Professor Whitham's book can be highly recommended as a comprehensive account of the mathematics of wave motion written with great knowledge and enthusiasm. It grew out of a course given to postgraduate mathematicians and physicists and contains material that one would expect in such a text; a discussion of characteristics and the formation of shocks; application to water waves and gas dynamics; group velocity, dispersion and wave patterns; the classical nonlinear results.