Contribution to the Physics of Cellulose Fibres

Abstract

THE trend of fibre research to-day is towards a X clearer understanding of the parts played by the crystalline and non-crystalline fractions in determining the properties of the fibre, and this is the theme of Dr. Hermans' monograph. It may be said at once that he has chosen to consider, perhaps wisely as a beginning, those phenomena for which the properties of the fibre may reasonably be supposed to be additive with respect to the behaviour of the two fractions. The physical ideas on which he bases his discussions are of the simplest kind, and even if one feels that he sometimes tends to over-simplification, one cannot but admire his astonishing faculty of getting the most out of such elementary postulates.

Contribution to the Physics of Cellulose Fibres

A Study in Sorption, Density, Refractive Power and Orientation. By P. H. Hermans. (Monographs on the Progress of Research in Holland during the War, No. 3.) Pp. xvi + 224. (Amsterdam, Brussels, London and New York : Elsevier Publishing Co. Inc., 1946.) 3.50 dollars.