Surf Science: An Introduction To Waves For Surfing

Rating:
Summary: Great popular science book, not just for surfers
Review: I've never surfed in my life but read this book as a scientist with an interest in fluid mechanics. The book introduces a wide range of concepts and models, starting from large-scale climate patterns, to storms and generation of waves, to their propagation and evolution, taking the reader step-by-step through some rather complex phenomena. The writing is plain and accessible to a non-physicist, yet scientific, making this book a pleasure to read. My favourite section was probably the one on climate patterns, which discusses the atmosphere as a non-equilibrium, dissipative system driven by the energy of the Sun and coupled to the rotation of the Earth - and manages to do it quite well without introducing a single equation. For those wishing more mathematics, there is a list of references for further reading. I did find one or two minor blunders, such as the statement that "the equator is warmer than the poles because it is closer to the Sun" (the reason it is warmer is, of course, in the different incidence angles of sunlight), or equations with no units. Another warning is that this is a book about the physics of *waves*, not the hydrodynamics of surfing. But overall, this is a great piece of popular science. Any teacher who values problem-based learning will appreciate it - as, hopefully, will any surfer who wants to know why waves behave the way they do.