This book is intended as a combination of a reference book for those who work with cavitation or bubble dynamics and as a monograph for advanced students interested in some of the basic problems associated with this category of multiphase flows. A book like this has many roots. It began many years ago when, as a young postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, I was asked to prepare a series of lectures on cavitation for a graduate course cum seminar series. It was truly a baptism by fire, for the audience included three of the great names in cavitation research, Milton Plesset, Allan Acosta, and Theodore Wu, none of whom readily accepted superficial explanations. For that, I am immensely grateful. The course and I survived, and it evolved into one part of a graduate program in multiphase flows.

There are many people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for the roles they played in making this book possible. It was my great good fortune to have known and studied with six outstanding scholars, Les Woods, George Gadd, Milton Plesset, Allan Acosta, Ted Wu, and Rolf Sabersky. I benefited immensely from their scholarship and their friendship. I also owe much to my many colleagues in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers whose insights fill many of the pages of this monograph. The support of my research program by the Office of Naval Research is also greatly appreciated.