by A A Harms, K F Schoepf, G H Miley and D R Kingdon, World Scientific, ISBN 9810243359, £35.
Fusion energy powers the stars and is perceived as the ultimate source of energy on Earth. R&D work has followed diverse paths. Much effort has gone into the design and construction of a series of toroidal machines (tokamaks, stellarators) to contain the hot thermonuclear fuel. This approach was initially heralded as a fountainhead of inexhaustible energy, but attention is also focusing on more fundamental approaches such as inertial confinement of hot plasma and muon catalysis. This textbook provides a useful summary of the relevant physics and an objective overview of the possible systems that could allow and contain thermonuclear fusion.
