Preface

Who This Book Is For

This book is intended for:

  • Researchers in radiative transfer and heat transfer
  • Computational physicists working with transport phenomena
  • Applied mathematicians interested in graph theory applications
  • Engineers and industry practitioners seeking rigorous validation methods for radiative transfer codes
  • Graduate students in physics, engineering, or applied mathematics

Prerequisites

Readers should have:

  • Undergraduate-level physics and mathematics
  • Familiarity with linear algebra
  • Basic knowledge of radiative transfer concepts
  • Some programming experience (Julia examples are provided, but programming knowledge isn’t required to understand concepts)

How to Use This Book

This book is structured to accommodate different learning styles and needs. Each part covering novel concepts follows a consistent pattern: concepts → examples → validation → proofs. This allows readers to engage at their preferred level of detail:

  • Practical readers can focus on concepts, examples, and validation results
  • Theoretical readers can dive into the full mathematical proofs
  • All readers benefit from seeing working code examples that demonstrate applications

Julia Implementation

All methods are implemented in Julia (Bezanson et al. 2017), chosen for its mathematical notation that mirrors theoretical development, high-performance capabilities, and excellent scientific computing ecosystem.

To get started:

Install Julia and optionally VS Code with the Julia extension. To add the package of this book, inside Julia, run:

using Pkg
Pkg.add("RayTraceHeatTransfer")
using RayTraceHeatTransfer

Acknowledgments

The author would like to acknowledge all of the great teachers, tutors and sources of inspiration throughout his life.

Independent Research Notice

This work was conducted independently outside of regular employment and without institutional support. The analytical methods, conclusions, and software presented here represent the author’s personal research and do not reflect the views or positions of any current or former employers.

This preface provides the roadmap for your journey through analytical radiative transfer. Part I begins with establishing the theoretical foundations.