Abstract
PROF. BORN has made a very successful attempt to give a clear statement of the outstanding advances in modern physics in a form which should be intelligible even to those of modest mathematical attainments. The book contains the substance of seven lectures given to various associations of electrical engineers in Berlin. The essential foundations for the later chapters are set out in chapters i and ii, which give brief but sufficient accounts of the kinetic theory of gases, discharge of electricity through gases and radioactivity (including isotopes). The historical order is disregarded in the next two chapters in that the idea of wave-particles is introduced before the Bohr atom is discussed. The last three lectures deal with electron spin and Pauli's principle, quantum statistics and electron theory of metals, molecular structure and chemical bonds. These subjects are treated with admirable clearness. The illustrations and tables are particularly useful, and the book is well produced. It closes with some remarks on the problems that at present confront the physicist, problems the solutions of which depend largely on successful investigations of nuclear phenomena.
Moderns Physik: Sieben Vorträge über Materie und Strahlung.
Prof. Dr. Max Born. Ausgearbeitet von Dr. Fritz Sauter. Pp. vii + 272. (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1933.) 19.50 gold marks.
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B., H. [Short Notices]. Nature 135, 491 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135491b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135491b0