[Short Notices]

Abstract

THE author has given, in an interesting style, a vivid account of the physics of to-day. As he says, the book is not primarily intended for the specialist in physics but rather to give the student an appreciation of modern physics. The atom takes, of course, the main position, and relativity a subsidiary one. After opening with relativity, a large section on the kinetic theory of matter follows. This is particularly good in showing how the statistical method runs through the whole subject. The quantum theory and its pre-spectrum applications follow. The spectrum is described in more detail than any other phenomenon. This is perhaps justified, but the reader will find that the style of interesting narrative has at this stage become lost in a catalogue of spectrum series, energy levels and electron spin, to be regained, however, when nuclear physics is reached. Here the transformation of atoms is described, along with the discoveries of the deutron, neutron and positron. In view of the importance of these discoveries, they might have been described at greater length. The new mechanics is not treated with the same wealth of detail as the earlier subjects. This is reasonable, as the book is in no sense a mathematical treatise. The table of relationships between the atomic and the c.o.s. units is useful, and the student can exercise himself and at the same time revise his knowledge by working through the set of some 150 questions at the end of the book.

The Physical Basis of Things.

By Prof. John A. Eldridge. (International Series in Physics.) Pp. xiv + 407. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1934.) 22s. 6d. net.