Abstract
DURING recent years it has become increasingly evident that free atoms and radicals, chemically very reactive but physically quite stable, play an important part as intermediates in chemical reactions. Thus the equation of a chemical reaction, as usually formulated, is very often merely the sum of many separate equations involving their short-lived substances, and a knowledge of their properties and reactivity is necessary if we are to understand the mechanism of the reaction as a whole. Consequently there has arisen in the last two decades a new kind of chemistry, no longer bound by the usual valency rules—the chemistry of free radicals. Dr. Waters' book surveys in a general Way the whole of this rapidly growing subject.
The Chemistry of Free Radicals
By Dr. W. A. Waters. Second edition. Pp. viii + 296. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1948.) 20s. net.
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PORTER, G. The Chemistry of Free Radicals. Nature 162, 390 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/162390a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/162390a0