Abstract
THE publications in the Bulletin of the National Research Council of the Washington Academy of Sciences have included many numbers which are excellent reports on the state of knowledge at the time of publication in special branches of modern science. The monograph under review * is stated to be the first of a series which, when complete, will form the report of the National Research Council Committee on lonization Potentials and Related Subjects. The monograph is in two parts, the first of which, by Prof. K. T. Compton of Princeton University, deals with the methods by which critical potentials for the excitation and ionisation of atoms and molecules by electron impacts have been measured. The author gives a very clear account of the principles of the various experimental methods of determining the critical potentials of gases and metallic vapours, and of investigating their significance. There is also a brief section on the critical potentials for the production of soft X-rays from solids. The text is well illustrated by diagrams of apparatus and experimental curves, which will be particularly appreciated by the general reader.
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Critical Ionisation Potentials. Nature 115, 443 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/115443a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/115443a0