MR. MANN'S book contains an account of the three months' experimental course on optics pursued by the senior students at the University of Chicago. The name Chicago, uttered on this side of the Atlantic, suggests many different things to different persons; to physicists it cannot but bring to mind the name of Prof. Michelson, to whom we are indebted for some of the most valuable and ingenious optical investigations that the last century brought forth. An experimental course, developed according to the ideas of Prof. Michelson, could scarcely be other than original and stimulating; the course before us, in addition, is systematically developed, the descriptions are clear and concise, and the illustrations, though few, are well calculated to serve the purpose for which they were intended. Each chapter commences with a brief theoretical investigation, wherein the aim is to concentrate attention on the physical, as distinguished from the purely mathematical, aspect of the subject; following this is a description of the experiments, and the manipulation of the necessary apparatus. Room is left for the student to develop a certain amount of originality in his methods, and thus avoid reduction to the state of a mere mechanical copyist. Numerous references are given to original memoirs, which should prove very useful to advanced students. Besides the experiments usually found in books on optics, descriptions are given of the method of determining the j*e-solving power of telescopes, spectroscopes, and gratings. It is interesting to find Prof. Michelson's classic researches on the resolution of spectral lines by means of the interferometer included in a course for students. In fine, no one on glancing through this book would hesitate to endorse the concluding words of Prof. Michelson's introductory note:—

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/068217a0

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