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Re: Mathematics of Meteorics
At 10:03 AM 5/15/96 -0400, Lew Gramer asked:
>Does anybody know of a good publication or online source for the
Mathematics of
>Meteorics? Gary, have you written anything specifically about the geometry of
>meteor falls for the layman? What about some of Hal Povenmire's publications?
>I think it'd be fascinating to understand a little of what's going on in three
>dimensions as I spy those ion trails forming overhead at night... :)
This is something that would be extremely useful, especially if one of our
computer guru's could translate the math into a computer program for the
mathematically-ungifted such as myself.
As to sources: WGN (the IMO journal) often carries articles dealing with the
mathematics (in fact, I recently assisted a high school group in Iowa with
determining the rate of ablation of a meteor depending on its initial mass.
This was done with an article from WGN and the assistance of Rainer Arlt of
IMO.)
A couple of other good books with varying amounts of math are:
"Meteor Science and Engineering" by D.W.R. McKinley, 1961.
"Meteor Astronomy" by A.C.B. Lovell, 1954.
Note that the books are somewhat dated, but I still find them good reference
sources. I have "Fireballs, Meteors & Meteorites" by Povenmire which
contains very little math, but is a good introduction to the field. I am not
sure about any other books of his. Can anyone provide the titles of any
additional books he wrote?
If anyone else knows of other sources, please post to this thread as I am
always wanting to add to my "library."
Thanks, and hope this helps,
mark