Preface to Part 2

Ten years ago, when I started writing on the physics of vibration, I had
in mind a single volume. Four years ago I was reconciled to the need for
two, and now must confess that the complexity of the subject has made it
advisable to get the second of the projected three parts into print without
waiting for the third to accompany it between the same covers. It is still
my hope to do justice to the vibrations of extended systems, but the
difficulties are considerable and not made easier by the vigour with which
some of the central topics are being pursued at present.
Of all the encouragement I have enjoyed I particularly wish to record
with the warmest thanks the help of Dr Edmund Crouch and Dr John
Hannay who long ago, as research students, derived for me some solutions
of Schrodinger's equation which provided a stout anchor for my thoughts:
Dr Bob Butcher who has firmly guided me in my brief excursions into
structural chemistry and molecular spectra: and Dr Andrew Phillips who
devoted more time than he could have been expected to spare to a critical
reading of much of the typescript. If the state of that typescript as delivered
to the printers did not achieve even a modest standard of tidiness, the fault
is entirely the consequence of copious afterthoughts on my part, and in no
way to be blamed on Mrs Janet Thulborn whose patient and faithful typing
deserved better respect, and has certainly earned my gratitude. I am
happy to acknowledge the generous provision by Dr Brian Petley of the
original of fig. 19.5. The typography of Cambridge University Press con-
tinues to give me great satisfaction, but an oversight of mine in volume 1
has been criticized - without chapter numbers at the head of each page it
is unnecessarily difficult to locate an equation. This fault has been avoided
in the present volume.

A. B. PIPPARD
Cambridge 1981

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