Molecular Hydrogen and its Spectrum

Abstract

ANYONE seriously engaged in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and with a mentality broader than that of the self-sufficient ‘research worker’, will at one time or another have been confronted with the question as to the importance of his own investigations. Aside from the viewpoint sub specie œternitatis, from which the playing of the child in the sand and the discovery of the laws of the physical world appear equally important—or unimportant if one prefers—this question will by everyone be admitted to be entirely justified. An answer may perhaps be given in somewhat the following way: the more radical the change in our theoretical notions which an experiment necessitates, the more important the experiment; the larger the group of hitherto unexplained facts to which a theory opens an interpretation, the more important the theory. In these times, when new scientific views penetrate quickly, the frequency with which a scientific publication is quoted by investigators (other than its author) may serve as a quantitative measure of this importance.

Molecular Hydrogen and its Spectrum.

By Prof. Owen Willans Richardson. (Yale University: Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Lectures.) Pp. xiv + 343. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1934.) 13s. 6d. net.