MODERN PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY

Abstract

PHYSICAL chemistry is a somewhat vague but useful term which serves to indicate those parts of chemistry and physics in which the two sciences overlap. There are few subjects in which greater and more rapid advances have been made in the last thirty years: the development of atomic and molecular theory has introduced a host of new topics, and the older parts of the subject have been much clarified and extended, particularly in the treatment of thermodynamics, the theory of solutions, and electro–chemistry. There are in existence a number of monographs dealing with the newer topics, and Dr. Glasstone's two volumes of “Recent Advances” and his “Electrochemistry of Solutions” have been very helpful to chemists in approaching some parts of the subject. It has, however, been evident for some time that a book was needed which would weld the old and the new together into a consistent and comprehensive whole. This gigantic task has now been completed by Dr. Glasstone in the volume under review; it has been carried out with the competence and clarity which characterize his earlier writings.

Text–Book of Physical Chemistry

By Dr. Samuel Glasstone. Pp. xiii + 1289. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1940.) 42s. net.