(1) Handbuch der Physik (2) Lectures on Theoretical Physics delivered at the University of Leiden

Abstract

(1) THE two volumes before us of Geiger and Scheel's “Handbuch der Physik” contain a complete survey of those portions of the mathematical analysis of the mechanical principles and their applications which have any bearing on physical phenomena and theory in the broadest sense of those terms. After a preliminary short section on the various axiomatic systems of mechanics, the first volume opens with an excellent analysis of all the fundamental principles and methods employed in the attack on the soluble problems of dynamics. This is followed by a short section on the important subject of disturbed motions, the first step towards the solution of more general problems. These two sections on general principles and methods are followed by a number of chapters on the detailed application of the methods to specific problems: the first of these is on the kinematics of a point and rigid body; then there is a chapter on the geometry of forces—including the graphical methods, and one with the usual treatment of the dynamics of mass point systems and of rigid bodies. This volume concludes with a section on the applications of dynamical principles to technical problems, and a final short section on the bearing of the special and general relativity theories on the principles and results of the previous general theories.

(1) Handbuch der Physik.

H. Geiger Karl Scheel. Band 5: Grundlagen der Mechanik, Mechanik der Punkte und starren Körper. Pp. xiv + 623. 51.60 gold marks. Band 7: Mechanik der flüssigen und gasförmigen Körper. Redigiert von R. Grammel. Pp. xi + 413. 34.50 gold marks. (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1927.)

(2) Lectures on Theoretical Physics delivered at the University of Leiden.

H. A. Lorentz. Authorised translation by Dr. L. Silberstein and A. P. H. Trivelli. Vol. 2: Thermodynamics, edited by T. C. Clay-Jolles; Entropy and Probability, edited by Dr. C. A. Crommelin; The Theory of Radiation, edited by Dr. A. D. Fokker; The Theory of Quanta, edited by Dr. G. L. de Haas-Lorentz. Pp. xii + 410. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1927.) 21s. net.