Percolation Theory for Flow in Porous Media

Book excerpt: Why would we wish to start a 2nd edition of “Percolation theory for ?ow in porous media” only two years after the ?rst one was ?nished? There are essentially three reasons: 1) Reviews in the soil physics community have pointed out that the introductory material on percolation theory could have been more accessible. Our additional experience in teaching this material led us to believe that we could improve this aspect of the book. In the context of rewriting the ?rst chapter, however, we also expanded the discussion of Bethe lattices and their relevance for “classical” - ponents of percolation theory, thus giving more of a basis for the discussion of the relevance of hyperscaling. This addition, though it will not tend to make the book more accessible to hydrologists, was useful in making it a more complete reference, and these sections have been marked as being possible to omit in a ?rst reading. It also forced a division of the ?rst chapter into two. We hope that physicists without a background in percolation theory will now also ?nd the - troductory material somewhat more satisfactory. 2) We have done considerable further work on problems of electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and electromechanical coupling.