John Wesson

This book touches upon a broad spectrum of topics surrounding the current understanding of and research pertaining to Tokamaks and is a great, monolithic reference for anyone doing research in plasma physics. Written by John Wesson, the former head theoritician for the JET (Joint European Tokamak), this book takes a no-nonsence approach in conveying a lot of information in short, to-the-point sections designed to get ideas across quickly to researchers. The breadth of material covered in this one book of 750 pages is amazing, and I found the sections to still be quite readable despite containing a high density of information. Bibliographies are presented at the end of each section, pointing out the foundation and other important papers for each topic at hand; this, I find, makes the book even more useful.

The most disappointing aspect of this book is the price. No matter what country you look in, this book will range from $360-$420US. I would not recommend buying a used copy as most of them are the 2nd edition, which contains a lot of out-of-date material. Even though the book is well made (it's actually a perfect binding secured in a hard cover) with a beautiful cover, I honestly do not understand how this book could be priced so high. Indeed, I have rare books in my library that cost me less than this book did.

Overall, I find this book to be indispensable when I need a quick overview of some topic within Tokamak or fusion research. Once I read the relevant sections within this book, I find it much easier to read the papers or more in-depth texts on the topic I am looking into.… (más)