[.ca] Blip, Ping, & Buzz: Making Sense of Radar and Sonar (ISBN 0801886651)

An Approachable Technical Overview of Remote Sensing:
Books on technical subjects can be broadly divided into three main categories: (i) very basic in its descriptions with many historical and biographical snippets but with no mathematics or formulas, (ii) significantly more advanced in technical content with formulas - a possible supplement to a textbook on the subject, and (iii) very advanced such as a textbook or a research paper. I would place this book in the second category. The author's expertise in this field is very obvious through the clarity with which the principles behind radar and sonar are explained. Technical notes at the back of the book, 23 of them, provide more in-depth information for the interested reader on certain technical details. Remote sensing by bats, dolphins and whales is also discussed. The writing style is clear, friendly, authoritative, very witty - a most pleasant feature in a technical book, and quite accessible, although some passages need serious concentration. I learned quite a bit from reading this book but I would benefit even more from re-reading certain sections since this subject, at this level of technical detail, is so new to me. This book would likely of most interest to science buffs.