Optics: Volume 2 of Modern Classical Physics

by Kip S. Thorne, Roger D. Blandford

A groundbreaking textbook on twenty-first-century waves of all sorts and their applications

Kip Thorne and Roger Blandford’s monumental Modern Classical Physics is now available in five stand-alone volumes that make ideal textbooks for individual graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on statistical physics; optics; elasticity and fluid dynamics; plasma physics; and relativity and cosmology. Each volume teaches the fundamental concepts, emphasizes modern, real-world applications, and gives students a physical and intuitive understanding of the subject.

Optics is an essential introduction to a resurgent subject. “Optics” originally referred to the study of light, but today the field encompasses all types of waves, including electromagnetic waves, from gamma rays to radio waves; gravitational waves; waves in solids, fluids, and plasmas; and quantum waves. The past few decades have seen revolutions in optics―amazing advances in nonlinear optics technology, a growing understanding of optical phenomena throughout the natural world, and an increasing appreciation of the wide-ranging applicability of optics’ central principles. Optics shows how and why this subject―which was once a standard part of physics curricula―should again be routinely taught to physics students, as well as to students in engineering, computer science, and the natural sciences.
The five volumes, which are available individually as paperbacks and ebooks, are Statistical Physics ; Optics ; Elasticity and Fluid Dynamics ; Plasma Physics ; and Relativity and Cosmology.

272 pages, Paperback

Published June 15, 2021

About the author

Kip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist and writer known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. Along with Rainer Weiss and Barry C. Barish, he was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) until 2009 and speaks of the astrophysical implications of the general theory of relativity. He continues to do scientific research and scientific consulting, most notably for the Christopher Nolan film Interstellar.