DECEMBER, 1954
669
have been inoreased to eleven by the addition of chapters on Natural Convection, Compact Exchangers; Packed and Fluidized Systems, and High-velocity Flow; Rarified Gases. Much new material appears in all chapters, older references have been deleted, and the more recent and better correlations have been used and cited in the bibliography. References now are given by chapters rather than for the hook ss a whole. New illustrations and student problems m e presented. The Appendix contains many new data on thermal conductivities and physical properties necessary for heat flow calculations. The reviewer must rescind his recent generalization that the M. I. T. group should learn to spell. Professor McAdams has spelled mole correctly through the hook. The new edition of "McAdams" will be welcomed by both teachers in chemical engineering and practicing engineers. Its fundamental neture makes it a popular text in senior and graduate courses. These same fundamentals are needed by the engineer in industry, who will also find useful the original references and illustrated problems.
energy become exhausted, it may well become increasingly necessary to ntilke deliberately the chemo- and phobautotrophic microorganisms for their replenishment." The hook is well written and edited. Its place on the serious microbiologists' bookshelf should be most valuable, as it groups information which has heretofore been widely ~catteredin the literature. CARL L. OPPENHEIMER scrnppe I~srmurlonop O c ~ * ~ o a n * ? " r
L* JOLL*. C*LI,ORNI*
PRINCIPLES OF POLYMER CHEMISTRY
0
Poul J. Flory, Professor of Chemistry, Cornell University.
Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1953. mi 146 figs. 16 X 24.5 cm. $8.50.
+ 672 pp.
Edited by J. L. Peel and B. A. Fry, University of Sheffield, England. Cambridge University Press, London, 1954. viii 305 pp. Many figs. 16 X 25 cm. $5.
PROFESSOR FLORY has written the most comprehensive treatment of ~olvmer chemistrv vet available. His treatment of the . aul,jrvt is nwrirarily modern since the quantitative azprrts oi polymer chrmiatry haw only heen drvr4oped in r n m t ymrs and Profraor Flury himsrlf ha* hem on? of tht. lending rontrihutors to this field. The book is divided roughly into two parts. The first part deals with the synthesis of polymers particularly from the paint of view of reaction mechanisms and kinetics. The second part deals primarily with the thermodynamical and hydrodynamical properties of polymers. Particular emphasis is placed on solue dthe determination of molection ~rooertiesas thev are a ~ ~ l i to
UNITEDunder this one cover is the more pertinent knowledge to date of autotrophic organisms and their mechanisms. There are sooroximetelv 800 references. and included within the ECODe of &&ophism-are photosynthesis, the physiology and hi& chemistry of chemo- and phototraphic antotrophs, and relationships between antotrophic and heterotrophic microorganisms, e. g., bacteria, green algae, and blue-green algae. Each of the several chapters has been written by an author who may be considered a leader in his field. The chapters were presented as papers at the Fourth Symposium of the Society for General Microbiology, which was held in London in April, 1954. The publishing date, May 19, 1954, indicates the interest of the editors in distributing in one volume the text of the Symposium. The b u k of the text is composed of serious p&pi?perSfor the advanced student in microbiology and hiaehemi&ry. Various groups or organisms such as Thiobacillus, photosynthetic bacteria, nitrifying bacteria, green algae, and hlue-green algae have been considered as separate chapters. Also chapters such as Utilization of Organic Compounds by Photosynthetic Bacteria and Problems in the Mass Cultivation of Photo-autotrophic Microorganisms have been included. To complete this interesting reference hook the introduction and concluding chapters have been well chosen. The first chapter enters into s. discussion of the separation between the autotrophic and heterotrophic mode of life. The following quotation illustrates a bitsic point in the introduction (presumably the statement applies only to bacteria): "The ability to live autotrophicdly is, as far as is known a t present, more common than the necessity to live autotrophically." As a fitting conclusion K. R. Butlim snd J. R. Postgate have supplied a chapter on the economic importance of autotrophic microorganisms, and thus is reviewed the economic end point of autotrophic metabolism. The concluding remarks of the last chapter require no explanation. "The evolution of industrial civilization an this planet has led to s squandering of the more accessible forms of chemical energy (represented by fuels, sulphur, food and other materials of high chemical potential), most of which have accumulated antotrophically over geologicd eras of time. Already this phenomenon is being reflected in world shortages of various clrs~sesof food and raw materials. As these concentrated reserves of accumulated chemical
references. The first chapter is a historical introduction to the subject. I t is pointed out that inaccuracies in the determination of the order of magnitude of the molecular weights of polymers considerably retarded the field. It is surprising that the author does not mention a t this point the contrihutious of Einstein on the theory of light scattering, diffusion, and viscosity of solutions which, if properly applied a t the time they were published, would have resolved the problem. The second chapter is concerned with a clsssification of polymeric suhatances. The text is accompanied by very comprehensive tables, rt feature that is present throughout the hook. In the third chapter the author presents considerable evidence to show that every functional group has equal reactivity at all stages of polymerization. This argument is extremely important in order to apply statistical reasoning to the kinetios of polymerization and of depolymerizatian. The fourth chapter deals with vinyl polymerization involving free radical mechsnisms, and the mechanism of initiation is treated in some detail. The inhibiting role of oxygen is, however, treated in a rather cursory manner. Then fallows a chapter (Chapter 5) ooncerned with the mechanism and kinetics of copolymerieiltion, emulsion polymerization, and ionic polymerization. In Chapters 3 and 4 the author makes frequent reference to diffusion-controlled processes which he later develops in Chapter 5. It would perhaps have been more useful if he had devoted a single chapter to this general problem and developed the suhject from elementary considerations. The sixth chapter, dealing with the structure of vinyl polymers, includes same results of X-ray diffraction of fibers which could have been elaborated further with the use of drawings of the structures. A later chapter (Chapter Q), dealing with nonlinear polymers and containing a kinetic treatment of branching and cross-linking, is the most original section of the hook. The second part of the book will probably he less comprehensible to the average gradttatestudent-of chemistry. It presupposes some knowledge of the statistical-meohsnical theory of solutions. The final chapter (Chapter 14), dealing with the frictional properties of polymers in solution, is the most difficult to treat exactly. Despite the high mathematical level of these
KENNETH A. KOBE
.
UwrsERalTT Or T&XAS
AUBTIN.TEXAS
0
AUTOTROPHlC MICRO-ORGANISMS
+
..
