JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
104 mrnhcrr of ilhrsrs or group;. It is prohnhlr, huwwrr, t h a t sricntista will Ire qtrondy impelled M resolve thew many qucariuns of detail only w l m nwre i i lenrncd nbout the physiological funrtions of the many pigments whose structures are already known. It is to be hoped that this admirable synthesis of the existing information in this area of hioloev will stimulate the formulation and resolution of the many p r o b h s that remain. The book is well, though not profusely, illustrated with figures, mostly of anatomical sections which show the disposition of pigments or of the elements responsible for structural colors. Three handsome color plates, from original paintings, adorn the volume. The book is well made and excellently printed in a pleasing type face. An author index, an alphabetical bibliography of the approximately nine hundred references, and a detailed subject index are provided. The few minor typographical errors to be found in the first copies will be corrected in subsequent printings.
tion. In Chapter Five, quantum theory first appears in terms of the historical labors of Planek on heat radiation. Thereafter the treatment covers the usual gamut of the Bohr theory of atomic structure, its triumphs and ditficulties, and the way in which it led to the wave mechanics of Sohrodinger and the quantum mechanics of Heisenberg. There is a particularly interesting discussion of the indeterministic character of modem qusntum theory and a brief survey of some very recent suggestions that this indeterminism may he superseded in the future evolution of the theory. The book closes with an %count of the relativistic theory of the electron (Direc) and quantum statistics. The translation is fully adequate to the demands of the material. A few minor slips, such as the reference to Hamilton ils a "Scotch geometer," might indeed have been corrected. There are no illustrations. The format and the type are good. One might quarrel with the title, for the use of the word "revolution" in physics has been vastly overdone. The book should prove of particular value to graduate students of physics and chemistry. R. B. LINDSAY
0
THE REVOLUTION IN PHYSICS: MATICAL SURVEY OF QUANTA
A NON-MATHE
Louis d e Broglie. Translated by Rolph W. Niemeyer. The Noonday Press, New Yak, 1953. 310 pp. 14.5 X 21.5 cm. $4.33. Tms is the first American edition of the author's "La Physique nonvelle et les Quanta" published in France in 1937. I t does indeed contain some additional matarial in the form of recent comments an the present situation respecting the methodology of quantum physics as well as a section on new developments in nuclear physics. The author needs no introduction to American scientists, and even the lay public have for some time been familiar with the achievements which led to his winning of the Nobel Prize in 1929. He is, of course, one of the distinguished creators of modern quantum mechanics. In addition to his scientific researches, during the past fifteen years de Broglie has produced a number of eenerd treatises more or less historical and semioooula in charnrtrr artting forth the ~ I ~ I I S ~ 2nd R ~ W~ignifil-mcroi tnt!t>tietl,I.PII~UTJ. ~tomiv snd ndiation phyiirr. l'hc vol~rrnt.under review i* a good illuttrathm 01 his s l h t y to prewnt m11a.r difficult phyical ideas in nonmathematical terms and in graceful language. This does not mean that the hook is a popular introduction to quantum physics, as the tern is commonly understood in this country. Actually it makes considerable demands on the reader's backeronnd and he will eet out of it little more than aesthetic " plrnsurc in thc ngrwahlr style if he ayqrnnwlw.i the r~vdillgwith out n tirm knon.lcd~cof gr8ternl phwivq on tlw trnivcr-~tyIrvrl. Thp vol~rmerxcmplifics i~
