Les Quantités élementaires d'Électricité: Ions, Électrons, Corpuscles

Abstract

THIS very important work, which has been brought out by the French Physical Society under the joint editorship of MM. Abraham and Langevin, consists of a series of digests of the memoirs on which the foundation of the electrodynamic theory of matter is laid. In some cases résumés of their researches have been written especially for this work by the original authors, but in the majority of instances the papers have been dealt with by abstractors. The value of this method depends entirely on the insight which is brought to bear upon it, and the task must have been particularly difficult in the present instance owing to the great variety of the material concerned, since many of the investigations are purely experimental, whilst others require all the skill in abstract reasoning possessed by the pure mathematician. The excellence which we should expect from the names of the editors, one of whom, M. Langevin, has himself made extensive and valuable contributions to the subject, is completely justified by the result. Whenever it was consistent with the necessary brevity, the abstractors have kept to the original words of the author, and, so far as the reviewer has been able to discover, no author can claim that his views have been misrepresented in any important particular.

Les Quantités élementaires d'Électricité: Ions, Électrons, Corpuscles.

Mémoires réunis et publiés par Henri Abraham et Paul Langevin. Two volumes. Pp. xvi + 1138. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars et Fils, 1905.) Price 35 francs.