Ebook: The Versatile Soliton

The soliton, a solitary wave impulse preserving its shape and strikingly similar to a particle, is one of the most fascinating and beautiful phenomena in the physics of nonlinear waves. In this classic book, the concept of the soliton is traced from the beginning of the last century to modern times, with recent applications in biology, oceanography, solid state physics, electronics, elementary particle physics, and cosmology.

The Versatile Soliton is an appropriate title indeed. There is much new historical information in the book…The book is written in a lively language and the physics presented in a clear, pedagogical style. Most of the chapters require only knowledge of fairly elementary mathematics and the main ideas of soliton physics are well explained without mathematics at all…Yet it contains valuable information and offers a historical review of soliton physics that cannot be found elsewhere.

—Centaurus

In summary, this book is a good elementary treatment of solitons and the related history of physics and mathematics, even for readers with little knowledge of advanced mathematics. For readers with the latter knowledge, it is still a good introduction to the physical ideas required for the understanding of solitons prior to the study of more mathematical treatments from other sources.

—Mathematical Reviews

This engaging book is an excellent introduction into the wonderful world of soliton mechanics.

—Zentralblatt Math

No doubt, everyone can get new information from the book. First, the book is strongly recommended to young researchers. In a certain sense, the book is unique and definitely will find a niche among numerous textbooks on solitons.

—Physicala

---

This book gives a nice insight into the history of the concept of soliton. After a long (but interesting) historical introduction, the author goes deeper into the physical and mathematical concepts related to waves and (nonlinear) dynamics. Although the treatment always stays at an elementary level , the author always try to enlight the physical meaning of the results. From this point of view it will please the beginner already having some notions of these concepts. All the areas of science where the concept of soliton has been proved to be useful are mentionned, which makes the books quite complete on the subject. I dont give 5 stars because of a lake of clarity of the last chapter on particle physics (but I must admit that this is subjective and that this area of physics is not my speciality) and because of the price (this book is quite expensive). Needless to say that this book remains an original and quite pedagogical introduction on the subject. You will need some other books to get skilled with all the notions relative to soliton (the book by Dauxois and Peyrard will be a good choice to pursue your personnal reading). A good starting point nevertheless !