BIBLIOGRAPHY

V. V. Furduev, Electroacoustics. State Publishing House of Technical-Theoretical Literature, Moscow–Leningrad, 1948, 515 pp., 278 figs., price 20 rubles 50 kopecks.

V. V. Furduev’s book is good above all because, in a compact and well-organized exposition, it brings together extensive material covering almost the entire course of technical acoustics, to whose program it closely corresponds.

The contents of the book may be seen from its table of contents: I—Linear oscillatory systems and the method of electromechanical analogies; II—The sound field; III—Sound radiation; IV—Theory of the horn; V—Electroacoustic systems; VI and VII—Cone and horn electrodynamic loudspeakers; VIII—Electromagnetic sound emitters; IX—Recording and reproduction of sound; X—Broadcasting microphones; XI—Electroacoustic piezoelectric apparatus; XII and XIII—Acoustic processes in closed rooms (statistical and wave theory); XIV—Sound absorption; XV—Acoustic insulation; XVI—Public-address and sound-amplification systems.

The author wrote this book not as a textbook, but it will undoubtedly serve as one. It must be said that technical acoustics up to this time had to be studied from a rather extensive list of very heterogeneous books and even some journal articles.

V. V. Furduev’s book is also good because it is highly up to date and contains the latest theoretical and technical information.

For all its accessibility it is written at a high theoretical level. In this respect it differs favorably, for example, from Olson and Massa’s Applied Acoustics, and especially from Olson’s Dynamical Analogies, which is quite poor in ideas.

V. V. Furduev’s book includes interesting materials from the author’s own varied investigations. The reader will find original material in the presentation of the theory of loudspeakers, architectural acoustics, reciprocity theorems, horn theory, and many other subjects.

The book also deserves high praise from the methodological and methodical side. In particular, one should welcome the author’s own clarification of the content and interaction of statistical and wave theory as applied to architectural acoustics.

Finally, the reader will note with satisfaction that V. V. Furduev’s book reflects, with due completeness, the achievements of Soviet acoustical science and technology.

The shortcoming of V. V. Furduev’s book, as I see it, lies not in what it contains, but in what, to my regret, it does not contain. I have in mind the chapter “Fidelity of sound transmission,” which substantiates the requirements placed on acoustic apparatus and broadly determines the general tendencies in its development. The absence of this very useful chapter is all the more incomprehensible to me since the author himself at one time quite justifiably and ardently advocated the inclusion of a section bearing this title in the curriculum for the course in acoustics.

One way or another, the author may be congratulated on an indisputable success, and students and specialists on a valuable and substantial textbook.

A. Kharkevich