A Student's Guide to Vectors and Tensors

ISBN-13: 9780521171908 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 208 str.

Daniel Fleisch

Opis

Vectors and tensors are among the most powerful problem-solving tools available, with applications ranging from mechanics and electromagnetics to general relativity. Understanding the nature and application of vectors and tensors is critically important to students of physics and engineering. Adopting the same approach used in his highly popular A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations, Fleisch explains vectors and tensors in plain language. Written for undergraduate and beginning graduate students, the book provides a thorough grounding in vectors and vector calculus before transitioning through contra and covariant components to tensors and their applications. Matrices and their algebra are reviewed on the book's supporting website, which also features interactive solutions to every problem in the text where students can work through a series of hints or choose to see the entire solution at once. Audio podcasts give students the opportunity to hear important concepts in the book explained by the author.

Recenzje

'This is both helpful and innovative ... Fleisch's book is an excellent and challenging resource for students in this subject area.' Optics and Photonics News

Spis treści

1. Vectors; 2. Vector operations; 3. Vector applications; 4. Covariant and contravariant vector components; 5. Higher-rank tensors; 6. Tensor applications; Index.

O autorze

Fleisch, Daniel A.
Daniel Fleisch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Wittenberg University, where he specializes in electromagnetics and space physics. He is the author of A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations (Cambridge University Press, 2008).