BOOK REVIEWS -
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bring himself up-to-date in this area, or who is attracted by the collection of readily mailable reprints of the major research papers of the last ten ar twelve years.
H. H . JAFF~ Uniuemily of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn, University of Callfornia, Berkeley. University of Chicago 172 pp. Press, Chicago, 1962. xv 17.5 X 25 cm. 84.
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This interesting collection of essays is the outgrowth of the author's involvement with an experimental college course for the nonscientist. Such an experience farced the author to reconsider csrefully his earlier basic conceptions about the nature of science and the reasons for its special success. Enrichment in stud,", experience, and exchange of ideas were made possible bv the ConanLNas11 team since the author taught for five years the history-oriented science course that Dr. Conant had started. The author defines normal science as, "research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, that same particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice. Suclt achievements are considered to share two essential characteristics (1) they are sufficiently unprecedented that they attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity, and (2) simultaneously, they are suffieientlv o~en-endedto leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to resolve. Achievements that share these two char~rarteristicsare referred t o as paradigms, a term that relates closely to normal science. The term paradigm suggests that some accepted examples of actual scientific practice provide models from wh~ch spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research." The author assumes that "acquisition of a paradigm and of the more esoteric type of research it permits, is a. sign of maturity in the development of nnv" eiven ~, scientific field. The successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution ia the usual developmental pattern of mature science." The author argues: "The existence of a paradigm scientifio research tends to be a form of puzzle-solving rather than exploration of the unknown. Unexpected novelties can then occur only through a breakdown of previously accepted rules. Such breakdowns are encountered often. Inevitably the norm$ mode af ~cientific practice evokes "crises" which cannot be resolved within the preestablished framework. Science returns to normal again when the community accepts a new conceptual.
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(Continued on page A210)
A206
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Journol o f Chemical Education
BOOK REVIEWS "In a, science a paradigm is rarely an object of replication. Instead, like an accepted judicial decision in the common law, it is an object for further articulation and specification under new and more stringent conditions." The collection of essays is stimulating to the scientific liberal and should he given 8. high piiority on the reading list of the ooueervatiie or d l of us who do not understand the meaning, the value or the inhihitions of paradigmbin short, we can all profit by these ideas. I do wish the publisher had used some side headings to help us slow readers ease the osmotic effect of this interesting material-hut after all many publishers are victims of this failure in format-that is too often a publisher's paradigm! And, too, more care in topic sentences, better clipped, less wordy and verbose sentences, and more clearly drawn summaries on the part of the author would have improved the readability of this important manuscript. These failures are often s. professor's paradigm in writing. This is a goad book.
A. R. GARRETT
Ohio State University Columbus
Nonsloichiometric Compounds
Roland Ward, Symposium Chairman. Advances in Chemistry Series, No. 39. ACS, Washington, D. C., 1963. vii f 253 pp. Fige. and tables. 15.5 X 23.5 cm. paperbound. $7.
For anyone teaching crystal chemistry of inorganic materials, this volume provides a wealth of information on one of the most rapidly growing and most exciting sides of the subject. Moreover, so far as the reviewer is aware, no other volume presenta so much information in this field of study in so concise a. manner, there being 23 topics in 253 pages, about l l pages per item. The book is based on a Symposium sponsored by the Division of Inorganic Chemistry of the ACS held in March 1962, with Roland Ward as symposium chairman, From the standpoint of university studies, the hook will he a most valuable source of material for the professor, and useful as supplementary reading for graduate students and perhaps for some seniors. The book is also likely to he interesting and stimulating to those with research problems in this area. The level of presentation is not in itself difficult but generally authors presuppose some acquaintance with the subject; in the space available, there is clearly no place for elementary introductions, and for the most part readers must be able to plunge straight into the subject under review. The subjects dealt with fallinto the following groups: oxides ( 5 chapters), hydrides ( 6 ) , intermetdlics ( 2 ) , sulfides, tellurides, etc. ( 5 ) , tungsten and vanadium bronzes ( 3 ) ,clathrates (I),and a general introduction (1)-tntal23. (Continued on page A2141
A210
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Journal bf Chernicol~Educofion
