Advances in Chemical Physics. Volume 126. Edited by I. Prigogine (The University of Texas-Austin and Universite´ Libre de Bruxelles) and Stuart A. Rice (The University of Chicago). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ. 2003. x + 306 pp. $175.00. ISBN 0-471-23582-2. This series has been helping to define the field of chemical physics since the 1960s. In this volume, the editors have done their usual excellent job of bringing important areas of research to the attention of the community. Although the volume does not have a specific focus, the articles are all related to the topics of intermolecular interactions and the properties of fluids and solids. Some of the topics are not what one usually sees in the physical chemistry/chemical physics community, but they were very interesting to read about and demonstrate the breadth of intellectual endeavor in this area of science. The book begins with a description of intermolecular interaction potentials by Dykstra, one of the reigning experts in this area. The chapter provides a good introduction to the topic from the perspective of the theoretical chemist/chemical physicist. The view is different from what is usually found in descriptions of simplified force fields, for example, those in use in biochemical molecular dynamics simulations. Dykstra describes methods to generate and use forms of intermolecular potentials that provide information of higher accuracy on a broader range of properties than do simplified force fields.This chapter should be of real benefit to scientists and students in these areas of research because it provides some of the fundamentals that are key to understanding the generation of these types of potentials. In the next chapter, Champagne and Bishop provide a nice overview of how to calculate nonlinear optical (NLO) properties in the solid state. This is an important area of research because practical nonlinear optical devices are usually made from solidstate materials. Although there have been many calculations of NLO properties of molecules in the gas phase, there are far fewer on solid-state materials. The authors discuss results from the literature in solid-state physics as well as in chemistry and show the importance of considering molecular interactions in the solid state for predicting the NLO properties of systems. This chapter provides some unique insights that will be of real benefit to researchers in this important area of technology. Long-time simulations of molecular dynamics are critical if we are to probe rare events such as reactions in enzymes or the folding of proteins. Because of limitations in computer hardware,
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even for massively parallel computers, it has proven difficult to reach simulation times as long as even 100 ns. Levy and co-workers describe a new approach to achieving much longer times in simulations, especially with regard to reacting systems. The approach brings in new ideas from computer science and mathematics and has the potential of changing how such simulations are done. Although a broad review of the literature in this area is not provided, intriguing ideas, concepts, and future directions are discussed in detail. A chapter on the itinerant oscillator model by Coffey, Kalmykov, and Titov provides an excellent overview of an important method for treating the dynamical behavior of a molecule in a fluid. This area of research has a long history, and the authors do an excellent job of introducing it by providing a historical perspective and giving all of the most recent results. Despite having no expertise in this area, I found this chapter to be both very readable and interesting. A very nice section of it is a detailed discussion of the relationship of the theoretical work to experiment. The final chapter covers the statistical mechanics of nanotribology, the study of friction at the small scale. Although the study of friction is an old field, it has been completely reinvigorated by the development of atomic and friction force microscopies. Muser, Urbakh, and Robbins provide an excellent overview of the fundamental principles of friction as well as the theoretical methods for solving problems in this area. The chapter is very readable, and, again, excellent connections to experiments are made. This chapter follows the standards of high quality set by the previous chapters. All of the chapters in this book provide excellent introductions to the topics at hand as well as good overviews of the subject matter and more details for the expert in the area. They should prove very useful to both students and researchers in the different areas. As usual, the production quality of the book is excellent in terms of the formatting, figures, and indexing. I would recommend this book to practicing chemical physicists and physical chemists as well as to those broadly interested in intermolecular phenomena. It should also be useful to teachers of physical chemistry who want to bring in a special topic or two, such as friction. David A. Dixon, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory JA033544K 10.1021/ja033544k
10.1021/ja033544k CCC: $25.00 © 2003 American Chemical Society
