BOOK REVIEWS scientific writings and will be of interest to most catalytic chemists. On t,he other hand, many of the other writers seem to be most interested in promulgating their particular theories and establishing priorities. To this reviewer the flavor of the book is best conveyed by the following quotation from t,he preface; "The founder of the School of Polish Kinetics was J. J. Boguski, a co-worker of Mendeleev, lecturer s t the Chief High School in Warsaw and hitter professor of the W m a w Technical University. The r e sults of his classic studies on the rate of chemical reactions in heterogeneous systems were published in the first volume oi 'Kosmos,' the periodical ai the Polish Naturalist Society, in 1876. There he formulated and proved mathematically the elafisic law of heterogeneic reaction rate dzldt = KF(a - s), which had been derived by him independently of western authors, and i t was confirmed by W. Ostwald in the 1st edition of his 'Handbuch d. allg. Chemie' in 1887. We have therefore the full right to call this equatio~rBoguski's law." This reviewer does not want to deprive them of that right. In summary, then, this is a book that has a definite place in those institutions that want their listing of books on catalysis to be absolutely complete.
R. J . K O K E ~ The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland
Chemical Reactions in Shock Waver
Edward F . Greae, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and J. Peter Toanies, Physikalisehes Institut der Universitat, Bonn. Academic Press, 352 pp. Ine., New York, 1964. vii Figs. and tables. 15.5 X 23.5 em. $11.
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The capabilit~.of shock waves to produce rapid, uniform heating of fluids to high temperatures has provided a convenient method for investigating gases and gas mixtures over a wide temperature range. Since World War I1 there has been a. vast amount of work in this area, resulting in a wealth of new data on equilibrium and kinetic properties a t elevated temperatures. The present volume, as its title implies, ernphasiees studies of chemical reactions, although many other aspects of shock wave research are touched upon more than casually. I t is an updated translation of the author's "Chemiache Reaktionen in Stosswellen," first published in 1959 as Volume 3 of "Forb schritte der physikalischen Chemie" under the editomhip of W. Jost. The opening chapter gives a general introduction to shock waves with a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of shock wave methods to those of competitive techniques. This is followed by a
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Journal of Chemical Education
BOOK REVIEWS careful, comprehensible presentation of the hydrodynamic equations for onedimensional shock waves. The third and fourth chapters deal in same detail with the effects of gas imperfections and with the transit,ion region. Two mare chapters s~uveyingexperimental methods for shock wave production and measurement complete the introductory part of the book and bring the reader to the final chapter p r e pared t o understand the many specifio experiments discussed there. The text is clear enough t o he understandable t o a beginner in the field yet the coverage is thorough enough t h a t the book should be useful to t,hose actively engaged in the type of research described. The material covered here is substantially the same as that in J. N. Bradley's recently published book and t,hk reviewer finds little to choose between the two in style, format, or clarity of presentation. A major feature favoring the Greene and Tnennies work. however. is their inclusion
equilibrium properties and equation of state a t high temperatures, equation of state of condensed phases a t high pressures, spectra of gases a t high ternperatures, transport properties, thickness of shock fronts, vibrational relaxation, and
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Journal o f Chemical Education
chemical kinetics. Anyone who has ever looked up spectroscopic constants in the hack of Hertzberg's books will appreciate the wefulness of such a tabular collection.
JAMES L. KIXSEIMassaehlrsetts Institute of Technology Cambridge
The Chemical Foundations of Molecular Biology
Robe71 F . Steinw, Naval l l e d i r d Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryl m d . D. Vsn Nost,raud Co., Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, 1965. xii 468 pp. Figs. and tahles. 16 X 23.5 cm. $12.
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The author defines molecular hiology as all those aspects of biological svienre that can be deserihed in molecular terms, s definition many of us would equale with biochemistry. From this broad subject he has selected for discussion those individual areas which he feels are of current major interest or inadequately awered in existing texts suitable far use a t the advanced undergraduate level. The result is a book which begins with a. brief discussion of genetic principles and t,hen proceeds through chapters on t,he amino arids; the ehemiesl structure of protein-; the size, shape, and charge of protein molecules: the spat,isl organization of proteins; the enaymes; DNA; RNA and protein biosynthesis; the viruses; and the ca~bohy-
dretes and their biosynthesis to end with a discussion of energy transformations by biological systems. Four quite brief appendice3 treat the structure of insulin, basic thermodynamic concepts, the chemical synthesis of polypeptides, and biological oxidation and reduction. This last one is misnamed. Actually it is concerned almost entirely with the elementary physicsl chemistry of redox reactions, using the ferric ion-hydmquinone reaction as lhe example. To me, the last two chnplers seem out of place. They are basically s curtailed view of carhahydrate structure and metabolism including the electron transport system. I do not quarrel with the author's decision t o include these topics as molecular biology. Rather, I feel they are written in moresuperficial fashion than the rest of the book and that they are treated far more adequately in many biochemistry texts, various paperbacks, and a number of general biology books its well. The first eleven chapters make a. rather neat package a t a level somewhat beyond the deplh of biochemistry texthooka. This is particularly true with respect to the detailed chemical and phyxical structure of proteins, nucleic acids, and viruses, and t u the nret,hodulogy used t o gain this information. And in contrast to sbandard biochemistry texts, the currently reigning triumvirateof RNA, DNA, and protein are presented here in a. unified manner, free from what many would consider t,o be the
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