Abstract
IN the course of time every scientific book is overtaken by one of two fates; it lapses into oblivion or it is canonised as a classic. In the latter case there is always a temptation to extend its working life by the issue of revised and modernised editions. There is, of course, no objection to this so long as the author himself is able to undertake it, but after his death it becomes increasingly difficult to fuse the additions with the original into a homogeneous whole. The new ‘Preston’ is the fifth edition and Prof. Porter the third editor, so that it would not have been surprising, in view of the development of the subject since 1890, if the ‘joins’ had shown here and there. As a matter of fact they are less evident than in the previous edition, in spite of the extensive modifications for which the present editor is responsible. He has wisely removed, for example, all direct indications of interpolated matter such as were rather unnecessarily given by his predecessors. The new diagrams are more easily recognisable, since they are all black on white ground, whilst Preston's are nearly all white on black ground. In order partly to compensate for the considerable additions he has made, Prof. Porter has removed some matter, mainly mathematical, which will certainly never be missed by the majority of readers.
The Theory of Light.
By the late Dr. Thomas Preston. Fifth edition, edited by Prof. Alfred W. Porter. Pp. xxiv + 643. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1928.) 25s. net.
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The Theory of Light . Nature 122, 640 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122640a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122640a0