Abstract
THIS volume deals with the elements of dynamics, the thermodynamical potential, the phase law and other allied subjects of which a knowledge is indispensable to the modern chemist. The treatment is non-mathematical, but the author indulges in a good many discussions of a philosophical character. In defining the scope and aim of physical chemistry, he refers to the old style of thinking, according to which physics was the science of reversible phenomena, and chemistry the science of irreversible phenomena. The notion of force is defined by means of the extension of a stretched elastic string or wire. Why should not this treatment be adopted in books where relations involving mass and acceleration do not play a prominent part? We notice, as a useful feature, that Lord Kelvin's definition of absolute temperature is dealt with at some length. In the preface the author rightly directs attention to the desirability of abandoning such misleading notions as that of absolute in contradistinction to relative velocity, the statement that “heat cannot pass from a cold to a hot body,” which is like speaking of an apple passing from one hand to the other, and the prevalent confusion of language in speaking of ideas involving force and energy.
Traité de Chimie physique, Les Principes.
By Jean Perrin. Pp. xvi + 300. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1903.)
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Traité de Chimie physique, Les Principes . Nature 68, 597 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/068597a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/068597a0