Lehrbuch der Stellarstatistik

Abstract

THE title of this book gives a rather bald impression of its contents, and we may be permitted to amplify it into "the spatial and dynamical structure of the stellar universe, based on the observed statistics of stellar magnitudes, spectra, masses and motions". Our first word must be one of welcome for this encyclopaedic volume. If we leave out of consideration the relevant portions of the "Handbuch der Astrophysik"(a work in which there is considerable, but excusably unavoidable, overlapping, due, of course, to the different predilections and points of view of the several experts concerned) the present volume is the first systematic treatment of the subject since Eddington's classic "Stellar Movements and the Structure of the Universe"was published nearly a quarter of a century ago. When we consider the immense amount of observational and theoretical investigations during the last two decades, it is indeed surprising that an attempt has not been made before this to gather into a coherent whole the researches of a multitude of workers in this important field.

Lehrbuch der Stellarstatistik

Von Prof. Dr. E. v. d. Pahlen. Unter Mitwirkung von Dr. F. Gondolatsch. Pp. xvi + 934. (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1937.) 96 gold marks.