Laser Interaction and Related Plasma Phenomena. Proceedings of the First Workshop. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Hartford Graduate Center, June 1969. Edited by Helmut J. Schwarz and Heinrich Hora. Plenum Press1970. 522 pp. $25.00.

Abstract

As its subtitle indicates, this volume comprises the contributions to an informal conference organized at Rensselaer in June 1969. It contains some twenty papers covering the generation of high power, short-duration laser pulses, and the very interesting but exceedingly complex physical processes occurring when such radiation is focused onto solid targets of various forms, including extended surfaces, thin films and freely-suspended macro-particles. The prime motivation for much of this work is the possibility of producing a net energy gain from thermonuclear reactions in D-T or similar fusionable materials, with obvious implications for power generation, space propulsion and weapons. This aspect is represented by a rather guarded report by Floux of the work at the French Atomic Energy Establishment and by an extensive review by Hora, from the Institute of Plasma Physics at Garching, of the unclassified results available from various groups at that time. Undoubtedly, for reasons of military and commercial security, much of the most advanced work is not included here and continues to go unrecorded in the open literature. Apart from the economic attraction of fusion there is a great deal of intrinsically interesting physics to be unravelled in the nonlinear dynamics of such 'mini-explosions', as witnessed by the bulk of the papers in this collection. In reviewing this book, my only reservation is to question the utility of publishing in book form, some two years after the event, the proceedings of an informal conference in such a rapidly developing field, especially in view of the fact that most of the work has been published elsewhere in regular journals. Undoubtedly, such informal meetings fulfil a very valuable role, as witnessed by the popularity of the Gordon Research Conferences, but is it really necessary to burden our overflowing library shelves with formal records of such ephemoral interest? The general reader, and librarians, may answer no, but the devotee of laser interaction will probably find this collection valuable. ". P hysics of Hot Plasmas. Edited by B. J. RYE and J. C. TAYLOB. Plenum Press 1970. 470 pp. £8.00. This volume contains a set of lectures on different aspects of plasma physics, given by eleven different authors at a Summer School organised by Scottish universities in 1968. Each author treats his subject in some depth, and the articles are uniformly clear and readable. Inevitably a compendium of this type loses a certain amount of coherence and continuity as compared with a book