Chemical Species (La Notion d'espèce en chimie)

Abstract

PROF. TIMMERMANS of the University of Brussels and director of the International Bureau of Physico-Chemical Standards, was the author of a book entitled “La Notion d'Espèce en Chimie” which was published in Paris in 1928. This most useful little book has now been amplified to bring it up to date and very satisfactorily translated into English by Dr. Oesper with the title “Chemical Species”. The book deals with these questions: What is a chemical species and how can a given physical-chemical system be defined without ambiguity? How should a substance be refined so that it accords with such definition of purity? And what precautions are necessary in the precise measurements of its constants? There is much available data in the literature, good, bad and indifferent, but it is not always easy to know which are the best values to choose. Richter, the editor of “Beilstein”, in an article on how that great handbook was compiled wrote, “the principles to be followed in such critical choices have been laid down by Timmermans”: they will be found in Part IV of “Chemical Species”.

Chemical Species (La Notion d'espèce en chimie)

By Prof. Jean Timmermans. Translated from the revised French manuscript by Prof. Ralph E. Oesper. Pp. ix + 177. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1941.) 18s. net.