BOOK
REVIEWS
College Chemistry Linus Pauling, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. 3rd ed. W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, 1964. xxiv 832 pp. Figs. and tables. 16 X 24 cm. $8.25.
+
"Books" said Francis Bacon, "must follow sciences, and not sciences books," hut alas our outstanding scientists me commonly too busy comnluning with their peers or talking to the press to give much time or thought to the needs of the hegiruliny sludent. l.inu8 l ' d i n g is % ghrriuw exreproon nnd the luirst edition of f iwiuwd) ''Collczc his inimit.!lde ( ~ widelr Chemistry" ohce more puts students and teachers of chemistry heavily in his deht. It is no accident that the Elizabethans come to mind when considering a work by Professor Pauling, for his imagination, vers;ttility, eloquence, and concern scarcely belong to this prosaic age. But Sir Walter Raleigh would no doubt be a more apt p a d e l than the somewhat devious Lord Chancellor. Raleigh (whose tutor features in one of the more off-heat problems in the hook) it will he recalled, was both buccaneer and Warden of the Stanneries and later, in enforced idleness, divided his time between chemicnl experiments and his "History of
-~
-Reviewed
the World." Con~plscentprofessom of history should nightly give thanks that Professor Pauling's not infrequent protests against the conventional political wisdom have happily not led to hs incarceration. And surely one can imagine Sir Walter breathing sedition outside the Palace in the morning and froliokmg inside a t night? Rut what of the bookY This new edition of "College Chemistry" is a thorough revision and a considerable extension of a. widely used predecessor. The changes in the teaching of general chemistry during the last seven years (changes which were in considerable part set in motion by Professor Pauling himself) have made parts of the text and a few of the illustrations of the second edition seem too elementary. These have been ruthlessly cut, smsll priat has blossomed into large and much new material has been added, particularly in the areas of atomic strueture, statistical mechanics and thermochemistry. In the Preface Professor Pauling argues that "an understanding of statistical mechanics is more easily ohtained by the beginning student than an understanding of chemical thermodynamics." He makes a good case for this thesis. Though enthalpies of formxtion are discussed and tabulated throughout, the nettle of entropy is not grasped untillate in the book, hut then quickly and
in this Issue
I h u s Pading, College Chemistry 13. Jeiowska-Trsebiatozcska, editor, Theory and Structure of Complex Compounds William F. Sheehan, Chemistry: A Physical Approach Gregory R. Choppin, Nuclei and Radioactivity John 0.Edwards, Inorganic Reaction Mechanisms: An Introduotian Bernard Pullman and Alberte Pullman, Quantum Biochemistry Zstvdn Ndray-Szab6, Anorganische Chemie. Volume 3
E. H . E. Pietseh and the Gmelin Institute, Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie. 8. Auflage, System Nummer 58, Kobalt, Teil B, Lieferung 1 E . H. E . Pietseh and the Gmelin Instituts, Gmelins Handbuch der Anorganischen Chemie. 8. Auflage, System Nummer 3, Situerstaff, Lieferung 5. E. H . E . Pietseh and the Gmelin Institute, Gmelins Hh-ndhuch der Anorganisohen Chemie. 8 Auflage, System Nummer 60, Kupfer, Teil I1 Josef Hausn, Was Nicht in den Annslen Steht
V. S. Balabukha, editor, Chemical Protection of the Body Against Ionizing Radiation J . R. Birks, Rutherford at Msnehester Kurt Randerath, Thin-Layer Chromatography W . S. Fyje, Geochemistry of Solids
firmly. Some of the new material on structure is derived from the author's "General Chemistry" hut much of it is new and allof it superb. Since the present rigor of "College Chemistry" surpasses that of "General Chemistry" one suspects (though there is no explicit statement to this effect) that it is intended to supplant it,. ~~. Although the major changes are in the more theoretical aspects of chemistry the extensive descriptive material has been brought up to date and such recent topics as carhenes, cstenanes, noble gas chemistry, complex aromatic borohydr~de anions, the oxygen steel-making process and interstitial solids have been added. Not surprisingly the section on prnteins and nucleic acids is as up to date as the field will illlow. Liquid ohlorine which cost only five cents a pound in Exercise 13-35 of the second edition now costs fifteen cents s. pound in Exercise 12-34, and Dr. S. Kyropoulos no longer gets credit for the photomicrograph of etched copper on page 28. One of the few criticisms of earlier editions wm that the sequence of topics seemed a t times n trifle idiosyncratic. The present edition is smoother and more logical, and the typography is now more nearly worthy of the text and the xdmirable illustrat,ions of Roger Hayw~~rd. The design embossed on the cover is, homver, lamentable. Amid all this praise is there nothing to criticize? ("Critics," said Bacon, "are like brushers of noblemen's clothes.") One might question the relevance of the chapter on Fundamental Particles in the absence of the possibility of Professor Gell-Mann ns a guest lecturer. The more tritditinnslly-minded will regret the omission of the chapter on Solubility Product and Precipitation: indeed these two topics do not even appear in the index. Some (including Professor Pauling?) will smile to see the electranegstivities of several elements changing from the bottom of page 278 to the top of page 279. All will envy the treatment of Russell-Saunders Coupling, though some will question its appropriateness. But why quibble, tbe book is a marvel. In view of Professor Pauling's incdculable contributions to the education (at many levels) of numerous generations of students and more than one generation of chemist it is perhaps fitting to close with another quotation fro^ Bacon. "But above all, if a man could succeed, not in striking out some particular invention, however useful, but in kindling a. light in n a t u r e %light which should in its very rising touch and illuminate d l the border-regions that confine upon the circle of our present knowledge; and so spreading further and further should presently disclose and bring into sight all that is most hidden and secret in the world,-that man would he the benefactor indeed of the human race,-the propagator of man's empire over the universe, the champion of liberty, the conqueror and subduer of necessities."
Louis F. Fieser, Chemistry in Three Dimensions New Volumes in Continuing Series
I ~ E R EA. K I~AVENPORT Purdue Universily Lafayetie, Indiana Vol. 41, No. 7 1, November 1964
/
633
