New Directions in Linear Acoustics and Vibration: Quantum Chaos, Random Matrix Theory and Complexity

The field of acoustics is of immense industrial and scientific importance. The subject is built on the foundations of linear acoustics, which is widely regarded as so mature that it is fully encapsulated in the physics texts of the 1950s. This view was changed by developments in physics such as the study of quantum chaos. Developments in physics throughout the last four decades, often equally applicable to both quantum and linear acoustic problems but overwhelmingly more often expressed in the language of the former, have explored this. There is a significant new amount of theory that can be used to address problems in linear acoustics and vibration, but only a small amount of reported work does so. This book is an attempt to bridge the gap between theoreticians and practitioners, as well as the gap between quantum and acoustic. Tutorial chapters provide introductions to each of the major aspects of the physical theory and are written using the appropriate terminology of the acoustical community. The book will act as a quick-start guide to the new methods while providing a wide-ranging introduction to the physical concepts.

Matthew wright is a senior lecturer in Acoustics at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) His B Eng. was in engineering acoustics and vibration, and his Ph.D. was in Volterra series characterization and identification of nonlinear bioacoustic systems, both from the University of southampton. Since then he has worked on flow control for drag and noise reduction turbofan inlet design, aeroacoustic theory, violin acoustics and quantum chaos in acoustics for the study of which he was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship. His current interests include wind farm noise and the neuroscience of hearing. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Acoustics, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications, a Senior Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a Member of the Acoustical Society of Americas, and the book reviews editor of the Journal of Sound and Vibration He teaches musical instrument acoustics and acoustical design. Richard weaver received an A.B. degree in physics from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cornell University 1977. He has been at the University of Illinois since 1981, after a research associateship in theoretical elastic wave propagation and ultrasonics at Cornell. He was elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in 1996 and received the Hetnyi Award from the Society for Experimental Mechanics in 2004. He is associate editor of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.