Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Abstract

THE two volumes before us constitute the latest addition to a well-known series dealing with “Recent Advances in Science”. Up to the present, we have been able to ‘Buy British’; now, if we wish to study “Recent Advances in Atomistics”, we have to turn to an English translation of an Italian work, of which three editions have appeared in two years. Well, this is very good free trade and sound internationalism; the book is good of its kind, and may be unequivocally welcomed. It is something of a feat to present in compact form a general introduction to the fundamentals of physical atomic theory, with a discussion on wave motion and kinetic theory, and then to proceed, chapter by chapter, to give succinct accounts of fluctuations, electrons and positive rays, isotopes, X-rays, crystals, radioactivity, nuclear properties,radiation and the quantum theory, spectroscopy, the Stark and Zeeman effects, specific heats, the photoelectric effect, the Compton effect, wave and quantum mechanics, and the new statistics; the whole exposition being completed within the compass of 800 small octavo pages.

Recent Advances in Atomic Physics.

By Prof. Gaetano Castelfranchi. Approved translation by Dr. W. S. Stiles and Dr. J. W. T. Walsh. Vol. 1: Atoms, Molecules and Electrons. Pp. xii + 360 + 12. Vol. 2: Quantum Theory. Pp. xii + 400 + 12. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1932.) 15s. each vol.