Introduction to Hydrodynamic Stability

Instability of flows and their transition to turbulence are widespread phenomena in engineering and the natural environment. They are important in applied mathematics, astrophysics, biology, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography, physics, and engineering. This is a graduate-level textbook to introduce these phenomena by modeling them mathematically, and describing numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. The visualization of instabilities is emphasized with many figures. Many worked examples and exercises for students illustrate the ideas of the text. Readers are assumed to be fluent in linear algebra, advanced calculus, elementary theory of ordinary differntial equations, complex variable and the elements of fluid mechanics. The book is aimed at graduate students, but is very useful for specialists in other fields.

Philip Drazin (1934-2002) was Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Bristol (1981-1999) and Professor Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bath (1999-2002).