Mean Field Theories of Liquid Crystals Handbook
Most liquid crystal textbooks show you the equations. This one makes you solve them.
Nematic order, smectic layering, cholesteric twist, biaxial phases - every one of them comes from the same move: replace an impossible many-body problem with one molecule sitting in a self-consistent average field. Simple to state. Brutal to carry through to an actual number. This handbook carries it through, every time, for every major theory in the field.
You'll derive the Maier-Saupe order parameter from the partition function, not look it up. Solve Onsager's excluded-volume integral for hard rods. Expand the Landau-de Gennes free energy straight from symmetry and watch a first-order transition fall out of it. Then go further than most texts dare: chirality, fluctuations and the Ginzburg criterion, liquid crystalline polymers, lyotropic and biaxial mixtures, topological defects, and the flexoelectric physics inside every LCD you've ever looked at.
No equation is quoted. Every self-consistency condition is solved, every universal ratio is independently recomputed, and every worked example shows the arithmetic - not just the answer.
What's inside:
16 chapters, phenomenology through device designNative, editable equations - never flattened into imagesWorked examples and practice problems, fully answered20 computed figures, a glossary, and a complete equation appendixIf you've ever wanted to actually understand liquid crystal theory instead of pattern-matching your way through it - this is that book.
Buy now. Start deriving.
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