This introductory book addresses a broad range of classical Fluid Dynamics topics, interesting applications, and related problems in everyday life. The geophysical and astrophysical applications discussed concern e.g. the shape and internal structure of the Earth and stars, the dynamics of the atmosphere and ocean, hydrodynamic instabilities, and the different kinds of waves that can be found in the atmosphere, ocean and solid Earth. Non-linear waves (solitons) are also mentioned. In turn, the book explores problems from everyday life, including the motion of golf balls, life at low Reynolds…mehr
This introductory book addresses a broad range of classical Fluid Dynamics topics, interesting applications, and related problems in everyday life. The geophysical and astrophysical applications discussed concern e.g. the shape and internal structure of the Earth and stars, the dynamics of the atmosphere and ocean, hydrodynamic instabilities, and the different kinds of waves that can be found in the atmosphere, ocean and solid Earth. Non-linear waves (solitons) are also mentioned. In turn, the book explores problems from everyday life, including the motion of golf balls, life at low Reynolds numbers, the physics of sailing, and the aerodynamics of airplanes and Grand Prix cars. No book on this topic would be complete without a look at chaos and turbulence; here the problems span from Gaussian plumes to chaotic dynamos, to stochastic climate modeling. Advances in fluid dynamics have produced a wealth of numerical methods and techniques, which are used in many of the applications.Given its structure, the book can be used both for an introductory course to fluid dynamics and as preparation for more advanced problems typical of graduate-level courses.
Guido Visconti is Professor Emeritus at Università dell'Aquila, Italy and a member of the National Academy of Lincei. He has held a Fulbright Fellowship (1968-69), University of Maryland (USA). NATO Fellowship, Dept of Meteorology, MIT, USA, (1976, 1977). NATO Senior Fellowship, NCAR, USA (1986 -1987). He has served as committee member of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climatic Change (IPCC) and Member of the International Ozone Commission (WMO). In his long career he was the Principal Investigator UARS Correlative Measurements Program (NASA) and Atmospheric Effects of Supersonic Airplane (AESA,NASA). He was the author of the book Fundamentals of Physics and Chemistry of the Atmosphere, Second Edition, Springer, 2016 and the 2018 book Problems, Philosphy and Politics of Climate Science. Paolo Ruggieri is Junior Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna where he teaches Climatology and Atmospheric Physics. Since 2020he is affiliate scientist in the Climate Simulation and Prediction division of the CMCC foundation in Bologna. He contributed to the EU-funded Blue-Action, EUCP, COACCH projects and to the JPI-Climate MEDSCOPE project.
