CHEMISTRY CREATES A NEW WORLD Thomas Y. Crowd Co., New York, 1957. xii 321 pp. 15.5 X 22.5 cm. $4.50.
Bernard Jaffe.
+
THIS is a sound and highly rcadable report on x variety of relatively recent d* velapments in chemistry which are having or will have major effects upon food, clothing, shelter., and health and power for p ~ o p l eover the world. These include: the discovery of new medicines such as the "solfa" drugs and antibiotics; developmrnts of synthetic fertilizers and insectieidrs for agricultural production of food; improvements in methods of production of steel and aluminum and magnesium, and of new metals such as germanium for transistors; chemicals from petroleum, and synthetic gasoline 11.om coal; man-made rubbers; the discovery of ncu films and of silicone and Ruorocarbon plastics: "modern alchemy" and ncw clcments: and nuclear power as R n*K SOIII~Pr? of energy. The hook is generally well prepared and well n.l.itten. Individuals may differ u-ith the mthor on some points, such as the relstiv~lyhigh emphasis a n fibers in the field of plastics; but in general the coverage is excellent. Few technical or typogrsphical ermrs xere noted. Pmfessol. Glenn Seaborg has contributed a thoughtful preface. The illustrations am pen-and-ink drawings by Ava Morgan. In one or two instances, such as the "elertlon micrograph" of tobacco mosaic virus on p. 87, one cannot help but emem em be^. the striking photographs which are svaihhlc; but in general the drawings are quite effective. They are carefully canccived and frequently imaginative. For chemists the chief criticism of the book is that it tells much of chemicals and praple and industry and history, and only iittle of chemistry. This is, of course, the ususl and very difficult problem inherent in the writing of any book of this type (one for whieh no ready solution ran be suggested). Tho author has made mom effort than most miters to give the nonehemist some insight into the science. There are three introductory chapters on the basic concepts and symbolism of chemistry and on same simple "kitchen" chemistry. The discussions of some points such as that of the structure of the momatie ring and of atomic stmrture and the new elements include some reflection of the intellertual asppets of the scicnce. Even so, t,he hook is primarily a news r e pot.t. I t tells much more of the new world elaxted by chemistry than it does of chemistry westing that world. The book is written primarily for nonchemists and ran be highly recommended
to them. It will also make an effective addition ta library shelves for beginning students and for courses for nontechnical students. Teachers, particularly in high school, will find i t an excellent source book for information on recent and interesting developments in the field. HORRIN C. U ~ m e n a molr~ Tmhs AUSTIN.T E X M
ANDERSON
SCIENTIFIC FRENCH William N. Locke.
John Wiley 8 Sons,
Inc., New York, 1957. 13 X 17.5 cm. $2.25.
x
+
112 pp.
IN ELEVEN lessons and three appcndixea Professor Locke offers a, Freneh-toEnglish road map for scicncc and teehnology. As Head of the Modern Languages Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he knows the road blacks and detours which plague demee candidates coming up far language examinations. Very sensibly, Lesson 1 is on pronunciation, although the aim is to aid rending rather than speaking. Theirs not to reason why, readers of a foreign language can understand i t better if they can mentally follow the pronunciation, Minor deviations cause no embarrassment, so this book seeks to teach approximate pronunciation, not elocution. The lossons are progressive, with no attempt to make the routo to fluency in technical French look short or oasy. But there is some encouragement in the reminder that French is a closer relative of English than is Gennan or Russian, hence is easier to learn. Quite appropriately, d l three appendixes deal with verbs. The student who conquers French verbs o m say with Caesar veni, vidi, vincit. Tabulation of some language sspeets is commendable; they would fill dreary pages of running text. One of the best is Table 4, showing from a count made in 400,000 r*.ords of technical French, that the French equivalents and combinations of and, the, and a few pronolms take up 20.5% of the wordage, and 01 common words raise the count to 44.6%. The drudgery comes in mastering the other SSYo. Locke leads the student into sentence structure, idiom, and other aspects of French usage through actnal literature selections. Vocab~bnlmymsstety, he teaches, means to use the dietiona1.y and read everlastingly. JULIAN F. SNITH L = a o r ~ - R nCOLLECE ~~s Hicronr, Nonrn C - ~ O L I N *
SCIENTIFIC GERMAN: A CONCISE DESCRIPTION OF THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF SCIENTIFICAND TECHNICAL GERMAN George E. Condoyannis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1957. 164 pp. 13.5 X 17 om. $2.32. '
IN SPITE of the relntivcly recent war the number of German scientific and technical publications now probably oxceeds the prewar output. Combincd with the pachydermatous Beilstein and Gmelin handlmoks, the ability to read this mass of German material is a n e cessity for even the yomg chemist. The present hook seeks to be of help to the student who needs to learn how to read scientific German; speaking the language is of lesser importance. Thc arrangement of the lessons in the book is logicsl, and the examples of sentence canst].uction, grammatical difficulties, etc., are well selected. Tho only point with which this reviewer would disagree with the author is in suggesting that in scientific German festslvllen is more often eorrert,lp translated establish instearl of areerlnin.
T. E. R. SINGER Nrcw son^. N. Y.
PERSPECTIVES IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY Edited by Sir Alexander Todd.
Inter-
science Publishers, Inc., New York, 1956. x 527 pp. 16 X 23.5 cm. $7.50.
+
THE book i~ dedicated to Sir Robe1.t Robinson, D.>I., F.R.S., on the occasion of his 70th birthday, as a tribute to one of the greet masters of organic rhemist1.y. The volume is a, collection of 18 essays covering subjects v i t h which each author is intimately associated. The essays do not propose to present subjects in iull dct,ail. Some h i s t o r i d background is included in many of them. The principal objectives, however, are to give the reader cleat. and concise concepts of our present knowledge and the recent developments in the special fielda covered. Definitions, theories, new tools and techniques, and speculations for the future m e included. Structural formulas and selected references are used quite freely. Subject matter of each essay is presented in s logical and interesting manner. The reader frequently has a feeling of regret as he approaches the end of earh story. The list of contributing authors is: Linus Pading, Paul D. Bartlett, Wilson Hnker, I). H. R. Barton, V. Pt.elog, A. J.
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
