Although Born and Huang's classic work on the dynamics of crystal lattices was published over thirty years ago, the book remains the definitive treatment of the subject. It begins with a brief introduction to atomic forces, lattice vibrations and elasticity, and then breaks off into four sections. The first section deals with the general statistical mechanics of ideal lattices, leading to the electric polarizability and to the scattering of light. The second section deals with the properties of long lattice waves, the third with thermal properties, and the fourth with optical properties.
Max Born (was a German-British physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s. Born won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Walther Bothe).