A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of the Motion of Fluids

Abstract

NOT the least part of the good that must be attributed to the publication of the first volume of Thomson's and Tail's “Natural Philosophy” is that, as in the cases of Maxwell's “Electricity” and Lord Rayleigh's “Sound,” it has led and prepared the way for the complete revision and great advancement of several branches of mathematical physics at the hands of those who have made a special study of these branches. Lamb's “Theory of the Motion of Fluids” must be looked upon as another, and for the most part a worthy, offshoot of this wonderful volume. Although it would be too much to expect that one so young as Mr. Lamb should display the same masterly knowledge of his subject as has been displayed by the authors of the two previously-mentioned works, still the thoroughness with which the very difficult and somewhat extensive literature has been handled, and the appreciation of the mathematical points displayed by the author, together with a rare facility in abbreviating and expressing, render this in most respects about the best possible text-book of which the present state of the subject admits. Having said this, it will be seen that I do not make the following remarks with any view of disparaging the book. These remarks, although directed to the matter in the book, do not, excepting one rather important case, refer unfavourably to anything for which the author is responsible.

A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of the Motion of Fluids.

By Horace Lamb, formerly Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge; Professor of Mathematics in the University of Adelaide. (Cambridge University Press, 1879.)