Introduction To Soil Physics / Edition 1

by Daniel Hillel

Overview

To prove the correctness of a program is to demonstrate, through impeccable mathematical techniques, that it has no bugs. To test a program is to run it with the expectation of discovering bugs. These two paths to software reliability seem to diverge from the very start: if you have proved your program correct, it is fruitless to comb it for bugs; and if you are testing it, that surely must be a sign that you have given up on any hope to prove its correctness. Accordingly, proofs and tests have, since the onset of software engineering research, been pursued by distinct communities using different kinds of techniques and tools. Dijkstra’s famous pronouncement that tests can only show the presence of errors — in retrospect, perhaps one of the best advertisements one can imagine for testing, as if “only” finding bugs were not already a momentous achievement! — didn’t help make testing popular with provers, or proofs attractive to testers. And yet the development of both approaches leads to the discovery of common issues and to the realization that each may need the other. The emergence of model checking was one of the first signs that apparent contradiction may yield to complementarity; in the past few years an increasing number of research efforts have encountered the need for combining proofs and tests, dropping earlier dogmatic views of incompatibility and taking instead the best of what each of these software engineering domains has to offer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780123485205
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	02/01/1982
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	0.85(w) x 6.00(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Born in California and raised in Israel, Dr. Daniel Hillel acquired an early and lifelong love of the land and a commitment to understanding and protecting the natural environment. Through decades of work in some thirty countries, he has become an international authority on sustainable management of land and water resources. Dr. Hillel has served as professor of soil physics, hydrology and the environmental sciences at leading universities in the U.S. and abroad, and has been a consultant to the World Bank and the United Nations. Among the honors he has received are the Chancellor's Medal for Exemplary Service at the University of Massachusetts , a Guggenheim award, and Doctorates of Science honoris causa by Guelph University of Canada and Ohio State University . Dr. Hillel is an elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the Soil Science Society of America, and the American Society of Agronomy and was granted the Distinguished Service Award by the latter societies. He has published well over 300 scientific papers and research reports, and authored or edited twenty two books. His definitive textbooks on environmental physics have been use by universities and research institutions throughout the world and have been translated into twelve languages.

Table of Contents

Basic Relationships. The task of Soil Physics. General Physical Characteristics of Soils. The Solid Phase. Texture, Particle Size Distribution, and Specific Surface. Soil Structure and Aggregation. The Liquid Phase. Soil Water: Content and Potential. Flow of Water in Saturated Soil. Flow of Water in Unsaturated Soil. The Gaseous Phase. Soil Air and Aeration. Composite Properties and Behavior. Soil Temperature and Hear Flow. Soil Compaction and Consolidation. Tillage and Soil Structure Management. The Field—Water Cycle and Its Management. Infiltration and Surface Runoff. Internal Drainage and Redistribution Following Infiltration. Groundwater Drainage. Evaporation from Bare-Surface Soils. Uptake of Soil Moisture by Plants. Water Balance and Energy Balance in the Field. Bibliography. Index.