Books
"Entry Level" Mass Spectrometry Introduction to Mass Spectrometry. J. Throck Watson, xii + 351 pp. Raven Press, 1140 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036. 1985. $44.50 Reviewed by Frank Field, Rockefeller University, 1230 York Ave., New York, N.Y. 10021 This is the second edition of a book that originally appeared in 1976. Since that time many important developments in mass spectrometry (MS) have appeared such as widespread use of bombardment MS, LC/MS coupling devices, and capillary columns in GC/MS, and it is highly desirable to have pedagogically oriented books to provide instruction in this ever-widening field. To my knowledge not many such books have appeared in the past 5-10 years, and thus a need exists. According to its preface, this book is designed to familiarize the reader as quickly as possible with the essence of MS and with its potential and limitations. It is directed toward a wide range of readers, from students to those who may be involved with MS only indirectly, such as research directors. The first chapter is an introduction to MS and gas chromatography, and the next two chapters give a number of examples of qualitative and quantitative applications of MS. The following eight chapters discuss the details of MS, with the order of presentation largely following the flow of material through the instrument, i.e., types of mass spectrometers, sample inlet systems, modes of ionization, detectors, data acquisition, sample handling, errors, vacuum systems, and quantitative methods. An appendix giving a guide to reference libraries of mass spectra follows. A limited number of problems are given in the text, and the answers and a discussion of these are given in a second appendix. The material covered in the book is appropriate to its goal, which is to provide what might be called entrylevel instruction in MS, with an emphasis on operational and procedural details. In addition, however, most of the chapters give a brief review of recent work, and all of the chapters include a list of references. According to
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J.THROCK WATSON
my count, the total number of references is 1032, so the book provides the reader with a valuable opportunity for detailed study. The organization of the material presented is good, and much of the manner of presentation is satisfactory. However, the book suffers from flaws which in my opinion are not trivial. It contains an unsatisfactorily large number of errors of fact and/or interpretation. My reading notes list 15 of these, and I give four as examples: (1) The quite incorrect drawing and description on p. 225 of a Cf-252 fission fragment ionization source; (2) the incorrect formula for gas flow resistance on p. 297; (3) the confusion manifested on pp. 187 and 188 regarding the acidity of a species M and that of its conjugate acid; and (4) the incorrect statement on p. 192 that the limited success of low-pressure negativeion MS is the result of fragmentation of the analyte molecules by high-energy electrons. This statement is also in contradiction to the further discussion of the matter given on p. 193. The text is also marred by a number of misprints, some of which result in nonsensical sentences. A more general criticism is that in my opinion a certain
806 A · ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 58, NO. 7, JUNE 1986
amount of the text is concerned with obsolete methods or apparatus. Alternatively, one can say that insufficient distinctions are made between material of real current interest and material of historical interest. An undesirably large number of the references quoted for methods and apparatus are 10-15 years old, and thus the information given is badly dated. In discussions of instruments in particular, references are given primarily to work reported years ago in the open literature, but the startling and important advances made recently by commercial mass spectrometer manufacturers are not sufficiently recognized and reported. One gets the impression that the new material in the 1985 edition of the book was simply superimposed on the material in the 1976 edition with the result that the very real potential value of the book is degraded. Readers of this book will receive much valuable information, but they will also get some misinformation and some erroneous impressions. Analytical Measurement and Information. Advances in the Information Theoretic Approach to Chemical Analysis. K. Eckschlager, V. Stepanek. xii + 1 4 0 pp. John Wiley & Sons, 605 Third Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1985. $39.95 Reviewed by Cheryl Ham, Chemistry Department, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, L-130, Livermore, Calif. 94550 The purpose of chemical analysis is to obtain information about chemical composition. Information theory concepts have been applied to chemical analysis in the attempt to quantitate and manipulate the amount of information obtained through chemical analysis and to evaluate various analytical techniques. This text attempts to "comprehensively summarize" recent developments in this approach, focusing on work done since the authors' 1979 monograph (Information Theory as Applied to Chemical Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, New York). The introduction briefly surveys the applications of information theory to analytical chemistry. The two-and-a-
Books half pages of references provide a good beginning for a closer look at the evolution of analytical information measures. The first chapter is a four-page condensation of the description of the general two-stage model for a probabilistic analytical system presented in the authors' 1979 monograph. This model skeleton forms the basis for the more detailed models developed later in the text. The second chapter introduces the Brillouin, Shannon, and divergence information measures. The analogy between analytical and communication system models is presented here. The third chapter comprises the bulk of the text, discussing the application of the divergence and other information measures to various analytical techniques. The general model for analytical systems is detailed for quantitative one-component, quantitative multicomponent, and trace analysis. Several example applications are included to illustrate the use of the various information measures. The chapter concludes with a discussion of sequential sampling technique as an alternative to conventional quality control techniques—a disappointingly brief look at "one of the most impor-
tant application areas for analytical chemistry." The fourth chapter discusses the analytical system in more detail. A description of the analytical system summarizes the relationships among the various information measures. The effects of uncertainty, calibration, sampling, and analytical features used for method evaluation on information content are discussed. A useful discussion of stratified sampling vs. random sampling is included. The appendix reviews without reference entropy measures, mutual information and its properties, and f-divergence. The disorganized description of the system models detracts from the authors' claim that a "considerable extension of the theoretical apparatus appears in this book as a tool for treating new analytical problems." In Chapter 2, they proclaim communicationtheory-based models obsolete yet make no mention of the next generation of analytical models. In Chapter 4, they finally admit that their model presented in Chapter 1 and detailed in Chapter 3 is based on these obsolete models. The authors never directly address the exact relation between their two-stage analytical model and a
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Books Received Instrumental Analysis. 2nd ed. Gary D. Christian, James E. O'Reilly, xviii + 933 pp. Allyn & Bacon, Rockleigh, N.J. 07647. 1986. $53.16 Electrochemistry in Research and Development. R. Kalvoda, Roger Parsons, viii + 308 pp. Plenum Press, 233 Spring St., New York, N.Y. 10013. 1985. $55 Spectroscopic Properties of Inorganic and Organometalllc Compounds. Vol. 18. G. Davidson et al. xiv + 466 pp. Royal Society of Chemistry, Distribution Centre, Blackhorse Rd., Letchworth, Herts. SG6 1HN, England. 1986. $171
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communication model and the effects differences would have on the information measures. Despite the abundance of equations and the occasional awkward phrasing, this book is fairly readable. The derivations of the information measures are direct and generally accompanied by a brief discussion of the effects of the variables on them. A minor nuisance is the lack of a glossary defining their symbols. The examples given in Chapter 3 will be helpful for those who want to apply these measures to their own problems. The authors' decision to focus on the definition and the proposed application of information measures for the evaluation and optimization of analytical procedures has been fairly well executed in this useful summary of the existing analytical information measures.
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Liquid Chromatography Detectors. 2nd ed. R.P.W. Scott, xii + 271 pp. Elsevier Science Publishing Company, 52 Vanderbilt Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017.
1986. $64.75 Advances in Chromatography. Vol. 25. J. Calvin Giddings, Eli Grushka, Jack Cazes, and Phyllis R. Brown, xvii + 416 pp. Marcel Dekker, 270 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. 1986. $69.75 (U.S. and Canada); $83.50 (all other countries) Mass Spectrometry. Vol. 8. M. E. Rose et al. xvi + 360 pp. Royal Society of Chemistry, Distribution Centre, Blackhorse Rd., Letchworth, Herts. SG6 1HN, England. 1986. $126 Basic Molecular Spectroscopy. P. A. Gorry. 144 pp. Butterworth Publishers, 80 Montvale Ave., Stoneham, Mass. 02180. 1985. $15.95
