Abstract
IT is sincerely to be hoped that no one will be misled by the title of this book. “Satan's invisible World Displayed” was not, as Herr Teufelsdröckh imagined, a history of the British Press; nor is “Atoms in Action” just another addition to the number of books which attempt to convey to a bewildered, and by now rather blasé, public the latest inside information about the structure of the atom. Of course, atoms come into it—atoms, as everyone who has ever attempted high vacuum technique knows only too well, leak in everywhere—but the operative word in the title of Prof. Harrison's book is not “Atoms” but “Action”. “Almost every material problem of living,” writes Prof. Harrison, “turns out in the last analysis to be a problem in the control of energy. That part of the cost of a lady's hat which does not represent business acumen on the part of the milliner is for stored and directed energy—the atoms of matter of which the hat is composed are permanent, and will still exist when the hat has been discarded and burned. Only energy and knowledge of how to apply it are needed to recreate a hat from its smoke and ashes.”
Atoms in Action
The World of Creative Physics. By George Russell Harrison. Pp. x + 370 + 16 plates. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1940.) 12s. 6d. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
CROWTHER, J. Atoms in Action. Nature 146, 760 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/146760a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/146760a0