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This book contains the original lecture notes from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar´s course on the theory of turbulence. It details the work of the Nobel laureate through the eyes and ears of Edward Spiegel, an influential figure in convection and chaos theory.

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In January 1937, Nobel laureate in Physics Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was recruited to the University of Chicago. He was to remain there for his entire career, becoming Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1952 and attaining emeritus status in 1985. This is where his then student Ed Spiegel met him during the summer of 1954, attended his lectures on turbulence and jotted down the notes in hand. His lectures had a twofold purpose: they not only provided a very elementary introduction to some aspects of the subject for novices, they also allowed Chandra to organize his thoughts in preparation to formulating his attack on the statistical problem of homogeneous turbulence. After each lecture Ed Spiegel transcribed the notes and filled in the details of the derivations that Chandrasekhar had not included, trying to preserve the spirit of his presentation and even adding some of his side remarks. The lectures were rather impromptu and the notes as presented here are as they were set down originally in 1954. Now they are being made generally available for Chandrasekhar´s centennial.

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From the book reviews:

"The book under review is part of the Lecture Notes in Physics series, and aims to ´quickly and informally´ communicate knowledge in the subject. The book is structured in 25 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue. ... The book is addressed to both the novice and advanced reader, as it provides basic and advanced proofs, as well as different approaches and derivation of classical results." (Iuliana Stanculescu, Mathematical Reviews, May, 2014)

"The lecture notes on Turbulence by S. Chandrasekhar are transcribed and filled in with details by Edward Spiegel in the year 1954. ... it is interesting to have a book on these lecture notes for three reasons: 1. The scientific historian will enjoy this compilation. 2. The didactically interested lecturer can learn much about presentations in theoretical physics. 3. Students will find many explicitly calculated details in the presentation of the mathematical formalism." (Johannes Viktor Feitzinger, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1207, 2011)

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