Abstract
THIS little book of 200 pages is such a good example of the specially French art of popularisation that it is worth examining how the success is obtained. The first point is obvious and clearly attained in the case of M. Volkringer: the author must be a master of his subject. Wherever he gives details of any particular conclusion or experiment, he speaks clearly, as one who has been through that stage and knows it. In the second place, he must be able to select with judgment. This book, slight as it is, gives some enlightening illustrations of all the main stages from Archimedes to Planck and Rutherford. The third point is one on which the French are nearly always more successful than others, one on which the English populariser is apt to feel shy and open to comment. The successful author of such a book must give a certain amount of moralising and what may be thought commonplace generalisation. In this matter M. Volkringer is particularly good; he gives it and it does not appear cheap. Not only his own remarks but apt quotations from greater men punctuate and enliven especially the later pages. “Le succès est le plus puissant toxique.” “Le but essentiel de l'industrie est l'adaptation des richesses à la satisfaction les besoins humains.” “Tout le secret de sa valeur et son influence [that is, of physics] est dans le fait qu'elle est la science de la mesure.”
Les Étapes de la physique.
H. Volkringer (Encyclopédie Gauthier-Villars.) Pp. ix + 217. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars et Cie, 1929.) 20 francs.
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M., F. Les Étapes de la physique . Nature 126, 236 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/126236b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/126236b0