Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 3rd ed. 2016 Edition

Well written, and starts from the very basics. If I knew it's this good, would've read it when I was in undergrad.

Product is good but I just hate this book so much 🤷‍♂️

Frank Chen is considered to be the father of modern Plasma Physics. I teach a course on supercomputing and hypercomputing aspects of fusion, and as most reading this likely know, Fusion itself has now moved almost entirely into Plasma Research as complementary subjects.Some publishers bring out new editions every year just to rip students off, others wait ten years and provide a wealth of new material. Over many years I've found Springer to be in the middle, one of the more expensive publishers, but also better than most in providing real new material. So, the question: how does this compare to the previous two editions?First, the original 2000/2001 edition is actually a classic, still fetching $100 US from many sellers, so that begs the question. The Second, however, can be snagged for $26 new, so is it worth it to pay $75 to $100 for the "2016" (actually 2015 edition? Well, the truth is that although a lot has changed in plasma in 10 years, NOT a lot has changed in fusion other than it becoming more and more integrated with fusion research. So first, if you're getting this for plasma study, the new edition is absolutely worth the investment, and both has and organizes a lot of material you won't find even on the professional research web.Fusion is a little more murky. There are other good books on fusion that give more robust bibs, but IMHO Chen is still the go to source for the combination of both, which is where the R&D action is. If you're going into plasma this is a must, fusion, it is a should. If you're very new to both, the second is still a real gem.Specifically, page by page comparisons show light updates throughout, including errata and web suggestions, and the two new chapters are on special plasmas, and plasma applications including some magnetic fusion (heavy plasma, lighter laser). If this were JUST a fusion purchase I'd strongly advise considering the second edition, however the most recent developments in that field are all design refinements of plasma containment, leakage, waves, and mathematics, which is absolutely Chen's wheelhouse. The closest (and in my opinion best) competitor to this fine text is Jeff Freiddberg (Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy), and indeed Jeff does switch the balance to less plasma and more fusion. The 7 year difference in the two publication dates that favors Chen here is more germane to plasma than fusion, sadly!All three here are highly recommended but the distinctions are for those, like me, who are on a budget and can't just go snag every new edition. BTW, also sadly, the many "petaflop" developments in particle hypercomputing (my field) are only mentioned and not covered extensively in any of these editions, meaning another trip to Amazon for one of several supercomputing in physics texts, such as Segall or Mark Newman (computational physics). The overview is there, but you won't find actual algorithms (pseudo or real), quantum sims, or code, and need to go online for those after getting the refs from these fine texts.

Due to its content, I consider this book valuable as a guiding text for students of an introductory Plasma Physics course at the undergraduate level; However, it was disappointing to receive the physical book because (i) it is too small, making it difficult to read, and (ii) the paper used and the printing are not of good quality. (I have no complaints regarding the pasta).

The reason I bought this book is solely because it's required for the course, or I'll not even read it.This is a very poor book especially for beginners for the following reasons.First, its mathematical derivations are just a mass!!! I don't know whether the author has ever derived the formulas himself or he just copy the derivation from somewhere else without checking. A lot of details are just skipped which makes the derivation really hard to follow. What's more, the style of how he wrote the equations to demonstrate the derivation is not logical at numerous places. It seems like he just collected the derivation mindlessly instead of showing the steps in such a way that can be followed logically by the reader.Furthermore, the author's background is not physics or electromagnetics related major. His way of showing the particle motion and waves in plasma make me feel extremely uncomfortable. It's just like a novice using some kind of 'strange' method in the demonstration which is not publicly acceptable by the people in this field. I strongly suggest those who has the background of physics or electromagnetics do NOT read this book, since it is just too ANNOYING and DISGUSTING!

Since the many years had passed from the 2nd ed, I expected many improvements from it with corrected errors.but actually this book has obtained a lot of typos (Eqn (2.35),(2.36)at P31 and Eqn (3.35) at the P59 is one of the worst I have to mention),and its figures were mostly the copy of 2nd ed, with reduced resolution (We can see the pixel and blurs to hide them frequently. Was the figures were scanned from 2nd ed and just resized?)Trying to contain additional chapters seemed to be a good try, but why not tried to maintain & improve the reliability of the existing chapters? Now I could not read the textbook safely!

It is obvious that this book did not go through a technical revision. There are numerous errors, for example: there are two different problems 4.14, one on page 112 and the other on page 125. Chen’s book is clear example of how clumsy typesetting can spoil a good textbook. The indiscriminate use of boldface in chapter 2 would make you believe that division by vectors is possible or that two vectors can be multiplied without an intervening dot or a cross. At some point, on page 116, they did not bother to typeset anymore and just inserted a low-resolution scan of equation 4.101 from a previous edition. In chapter 5 the type selected for Greek letter nu and vee is identical, thus introducing unnecesary confusion. Several of the figures are poor-quality scans of the ink drawings from previous editions. Also, there is a mismatch between the numbering of problems in chapter 4 and their solutions at the end of the book, etc. In short, I do not recommend this edition, pick a 2nd edition instead.