In discussing August Hund's new two-volume book with engineers engaged in the communications field, the reviewer will at once be asked the question, "Is this like other books by the same author?" This is a frank recognition that Hund's books are written in a style slightly unfamiliar to American engineers. The reason for this difference is perhaps not at once appreciated although the difference itself is quickly recognized even by the novice. The new book is no exception to the author's former works.
This unusual style of Hund's books is based upon his European background. Nearly all European technical books are written in what seems to the American to be a disjointed manner. The American books on the other hand are highly organized into a logical sequence that follows a strict plan. In fact, after reading and studying many American technical books one comes to believe that there is no such thing as style in a technical book. European writers seem to try to inject personal individuality into their writing while American writers adhere objectively to the organizational plan. Both methods naturally have merits and demerits. The former is interesting to follow but suffers from omissions and confusion. The latter is rigorous and comprehensive but prosaic.
In his nearly 1400 pages August Hund has set forth a lengthy collection of mathematical exercises dealing with electromagnetic phenomena. All who examine and study the pages of this book will be forced to admit that Hund has done a vast amount of work in assembling all of this analytical formality. Almost none of the presentation consists of empirical data, but rather it is based upon the evaluation of results from basic theoretical expressions. The large number of individual cases and configurations of special problems encountered in engineering accounts for the size of the book. Many fundamental texts such as Stratton, Schelkunoff, Slater and Skilllng cover the fundamentals of the theory that forms the basis of Hund's book. However, as is characteristic of his previous works, this author deals with many specific problems and their variations. In this sense it comes a step closer to engineering, but it is extremely difficult to use unless one has studied the entire text with great care and is familiar with every page of it. The work also comes closer to engineering than most of the aforementioned texts because numerical results have been derived in the final steps of the mathematicaF analyses. In this sense Hund carries the solutions a step nearer to reality by selecting specific problems and by obtaining a typical numerical answer (often extensive tables of the result as a function of some variable). A great amount of labor is certainly represented here.
The general lack of system and organization tends toward omission. Had a systematic approach been followed so that items such as lens antennas, helical antennas and other recent advances were included, the book would have been even longer.
There is no question about Hund's technical competence in the field of high-frequency systems. The usefulness of the many varied solutions makes this a sort of engineering workbook in electromagnetic theory and insures its value to broadcast engineers and communications specialists.
C. W. HARGENS