Does anyone know where i can get a hold of a copy (to purchase of course) of Spectral Methods in Fluid Dynamics by C. Canuto, MY Hussaini, A. Quarteroni and TA Zang.

This book has become next to impossible to find!!

Thank you!

Hi I have this with me. I can sell this to you for 50 usd.I can email it to you as a pdf file.Email me if you want it bye

Martin, I regret that I cannot solve your problem, and can only wish you good luck in finding a copy.

However, I take this opportunity to rant a bit about the high cost of technical books and journals and conference proceedings.

I notice that the price of many technical books seems to be rising quite a bit faster than the average inflation rate. It seems I had less hesitation about whether a book is worth its price when I was a poor graduate student several years ago, than I do now. A few days ago, I checked the price of a book on Amazon and found it to be US $99 (no discount), with only one copy in stock. When I checked the publisher's website, I found that the book is now listed at an MSRP of $120. I promptly bought the last $99 copy from Amazon. I recently came across a slim little thermodynamics book at the library at work. I desired to acquire a copy for my personal library, but the price (set by its Dutch publisher) is US $175 !

I wish to laud three publishing houses for keeping prices on technical books reasonable. Firstly, there is Dover publications, whose book production quality and prices are terrific for the consumer. Thank the stars that Dover keeps some worthy books from the past in print at low prices and in durable paperback editions. Secondly, Cambridge University Press, who publish a great many scholarly and marvelous technical books in both library binding and much more affordable softcover versions. Thirdly, Springer Verlag, who publish an amazing range of technical books, particularly math books, and still manage to keep the price per hardcover copy in the vicinity of $70. This price, while not as low as the average for 300 page paperback books from Cambridge U Pr, is still tolerable for a good technical book. To a lesser extent, Oxford University Press, SIAM and the MAA also deserve mention, though their science/math/engineering offerings are relatively few.

Now, the Greed Grammys go to most other publishers of technical books (echoes of the situation in the recorded music industry, anyone?). I have heard that the US government levies some sort of inventory tax now, so that publishers must add that tax annually to the price of books that they carry over from previous years. I understand that the prices of books are subject to the "law" of supply and demand. I am very much in favor of free enterprise, and certainly the publisher should be free to set any price he/she wishes on the book. You can certainly see from the great variation in price and size of the books, that most publishers are not setting the price based on what it costs them, but rather on what they think the public will pay.

However, my bone of contention is that the major work of creating a technical book is done by the author of the book, not the publisher. Yet the author gets a mere pittance from the sale proceeds (I have heard that it is about 15%). I imagine that most authors of technical books write them for reasons other than money. Reasons like peer recognition, career advancement (the publish or perish syndrome) and the satisfaction of sharing technical insights. I sincerely doubt if technical book authors are looking to make a killing on the NY Times bestseller list. Most of them hold full-time jobs, and generally their university or research institute allows them to do their writing on the job without any recompense to the employer. Or else they get government grants for the period that they are working on the book. The exception here is of course the case of authors who are aiming at the lucrative undergraduate college textbook market (talk about rip-off prices on glossy paper). Also, with the wide availability of desktop publishing software, the effort and cost to be expended by the publisher is minimal. Further, the authors of many technical books are drawing on the writings of many other researchers or writers who went before them.

I would suggest to people contemplating writing a technical book that (unless they are really out to make as much money per copy as they can) they seek to publish through Dover (I do not know whether Dover will agree to publish new books) or Cambridge U Pr or Springer Verlag. They should also retain the copyright to the book, and not cede it to the publisher. This is very important for situations where the publisher might otherwise unilaterally decide that it is not worthwhile keeping the book in print, which is what appears to have happened in the case of Spectral Methods in CFD by Canuto et al. By the way, it is a terrific book, and I treasure my copy of it. By sticking with these non-greedy publishers, the author will achieve wider readership, and perhaps even greater fiscal return, due to the volume.

For the future, we must consider electronic publishing possibilities. I am certain that I am not the first to think along these lines. At the current time, one option is distribution of the electronic version on CD for a small fee, by the author. This would certainly bring down the cost, but would still require each author to expend considerable time and effort to keep up with email requests for the CD, and a secure way of collecting payment. I believe the physics community already has a free "electronic preprint" service for conference and journal papers, hosted by some university. There should be similar services for math and engineering and other fields of scientific endeavour. Similar considerations apply to books. The author already (1) contributes the principal value, which is the content of the book. With the aid of desktop publishing software and graphics creation software and grammar/spelling checking software, the author is (2) able to get the book into decent to excellent font and view quality on high-resolution computer screens. A file format such as PDF or XHTML-MATHML would be appropriate. The elements that remain to fall into place are (3) a distribution channel such as a website maintained as a public service by a university or research institute or other public-spirited stable entity (think of netlib), (4) an optional peer-review process (perhaps done by the author's friends and colleagues, the reviewer's names/titles/positions should be noted in the book), and (5) a rating/comments/errata forum so that readers can cooperate in economically discarding the chaff of offerings from well-meaning but incompetent technical book/paper authors (Amazon's system is a pretty good model for this). For element (3), a website supported by advertising revenue might also work, with this wonderful cfd-online website provided by jonas as an example.

We are so fortunate to have the internet. Our gratitude should go to the many people who create and maintain "guru" websites, loaded with valuable information about specific topics. In a sense, such websites are already a form of electronic publishing. However, the information is volatile and HTML screens are tiring on the eye. Creation of a book may be as simple as conversion of the HTML content of a website into a downloadable PDF file. Our gratitude also to the many people who provide PDF files of their research papers for internet download.

This is a pet peeve of mine, so I could probably go on for a few more paragraphs, but I have gotten something off my chest, so I will stop here.

[saurabhg]

Originally Posted by sumandeep
;28077

Hi I have this with me. I can sell this to you for 50 usd.I can email it to you as a pdf file.Email me if you want it bye

Hi Sumandeep,
I have been searching for the book Spectral methods in Fluid dynamics for a long time, but have not found it. As you have the pdf, can you just email me on this following email id-
saurabh.ganorkar@gmail.com or
saurabh_ganorkar@yahoo.co.in
I would be obliged if you do the same.

Regards,
Saurabh