book reviews
strument manufacturers. AU the articles were selected by the editor. This reviewer is of the opinion that there would he wide agreement among analytical chemists on perhaps half of the selections and considerable diversity of opinion on the selection of the other half. The Modern Clesslcs In Analyllcal Chemlstry. editor's decision t o include all nine articles Volume 11. An ACS Reprlnl Collection from "The Analytical Approach.' section seems somewhat questionable in view of his Edited by Alvin L. Beilby, Pomona Colown criteria for the selection of articles. lege. American Chemical Society, WashWhether or not the articles in this volume ington, D.C., 1976. 310 pp. Figs. and taare "Modem Classics," many eood articles hles. 21.5 X 28 cm. $8.50, paper. are compiled in a convenient sake and this reprint collection should prove useful to The purpose of this second volume of many chemists in various fields. The indices "Modern Classics in Analvtieal Chemistrv" will provide many of us who remember as in the case is stated to be. ~~,~ ~~-~of the first vol.~ reading some of these articles, hut not quite ume, to provide a convenient source of artiwhen, the necessary information t o retrieve cler for those whowish to keepabreast of rethem even if they are not included in Volume cent advances in analytical chemistry. The 11. The general subject index should also he articles included have been chosen excluuseful. sively from the 1970-1975 A-pagearticles in Volume I1 haj 310 pages and a paper co\,er. Analvtical Chemistrv from the "Reoort.". It is very reasmahly priced at $8.50, some. "lnr~rumentatiun." and T h e Analytical what less than three cents a page, and is, as Approach" sertims. It is stated in the preface intended, a convenient source of reasonably that thearticles appear exactly ar they $,rigup t o date information on many areas of aninally appeared with no correction of typoalytical chemistry. graphical errors or changes of any kind. AcJerome W. O'Laughlin tually the articles are black and white copies Universityof Missouri. Columbia of the original articles. In several cases where Columbia, 65201 color was used effectively in the original article, as in "Measurement Analysis by Pattern Recognition" by Bruce R. Kowalski (Anal. Chem., 47,1152A (1975)),the absence Synthesis and Technique In Inorganic of the multicolar format used in the original Chemlstry article considerably lessens the visual impact of the figures. In other articles some of the Robert J. Angeliei, Iowa State University tables and fieures orieinallv in color did not of Science and Technology, Ames. 2nd ed. rrprcdure will in hlagk a n i white. The text, W.B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1977. however, nnd all tables and ligures originally xiv 237 pp. Figs. and tables 16 X 24.5 in. printed in blackand xhiteareolgood q d i 511.95. ~
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i t should have a good knowledge of quantum mechanics (especially the quantum-mechanical theory of angular momentum) and its associated mathematics. Group theory, as presented in any of several well-known textbooks. is definitelv a orereouisite. he imduci1,le &or meihda are agroup of techniques for treating a variety of quantum mechanical problems requiring matrix elements over certain operators, or especially over products of operators. These include spin-orbit and spin-spin couplings, degeneracy splitting by perturbations, dipole transition probabilities, and others. Though some of the ideas go back t o early work and can be found in the hook of Condon and Shortley, the methods stem largely from the work of Racah. They have been presented in hooks by Wigner, Griffiths, and Fano and Racah. None of these succeeds in making them a n easilv understandable tonic., and neither does t i e present book. Silver has attempted to reduce the confusion by explicit statements of the conventions he has used-the coordinate systems, the exact significance of coordinate transformations, the phases of matrix elements, and similar matters. He has been careful t o explain fully the differences and similarities among the 3-5 and V symbols, the vector coupling coefficients, and the Wigner coefficients; the 6-J and 9-J symbols are likewise treated in detail. All this is helpful, but his inconsistency in some other practices is not. For example, in first writing an expansion of a vector in terms of an orthonormal set he uses the form
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Twenty-two of the 89 articles in the "Report" section of Analytical Chemistry for the 1970-75 period are includedbnd 11 of the 73 articles from the "Instrumentation" section. All nine articles from the section on "The Analytical Approach" published through 1975 are included. In addition this volume contains a one page "Introduction" by Professor A. L. Beilby in which he explains the criteria used in selecting the articles included. Three indicies are included; an index of all articles nuhlished in the 1970-75 oeriod in r h e . . ~ e b nlor ~ n a l y t i c a l ( ' h e m l s ~ s e c t i u n . an index of all articles puhl~hedfor the m e p e r i d for the "Ht.p,n"rertwn, and a g n s r a l suhject index. Eleven artieles are included under the general heading of "Spectroscopy," two articles under "Electrochemistry," three articles under "Chromatography," six articles under "Automation and Instrumentation," seven under "Measurement Techniques," all nine articles published through 1970-75 in "The Analytical Approach" section, and two articles under "Art Conservation." The "Development of Analytical Chemistry as a Science" by Professor Izaak M. Kolthoff [Anal. Chem., 45,24A (1973)l was chosen as the lead article. Several criteria were stated as being used in the selection of articles included. One was to include topics which are discussed in advanced analytical and instrumental ehemistry courses. A second criterion was to have a broad coveraee of analvtical ehemistrv, and to include author.; with a wide ranyr of hackpotmix aiiilliated with unners~ties, government laboraturies, industry, and inA314 I Journal of Chemical Education
The f m t ed~tionof the text was rewewed . Ali" tlY7011. ~ x t ~ n s i ~It110 e l y J o ~ r n o l 17, The new edition has t w n modified somewhat in that the tulrt.lurnace preparatiun of ('rCl, has been imprwed and a I'arr-hwnh synthesis cfCliHli(lr(W), added. SuggeA~nsfor further inde~endcntstudier, have been added t o all experiments and bibliographies updated into 1975. A checklist of purification and characterization techniques has been added and the index of compounds made much more complete. Ten handy appendices have been placed near the end of the text. The text remains one of the more popular laboratory schemes for upper division and graduate laboratory courses in inorganic chemistry. In addition, i t provides an introduction to the secondary literature and to laboratory practice for anyone beginning laboratory research in inorganic chemistry. Edward K. Mellon Florida State University Tallahsssee. Fiorida 32306
lrreduclble Tensor Methods-An Introduction for Chemlsts Brian L. Siluer, Israel Institute of Technology. Academic Press, New York, 1976. xvii 226 pp. Figs. 15.5 X 23 cm. 526.50.
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I cannot agree with the subtitle of this Ir,ok: it is written fur specialirts in quantum chemistry, not for chemists in general. Any chemist (or anyone else) who intends to study
explaining that Zj l i ) ( i 1 is one way of expressing the identity operator. This is a widelv used convention. and followine i t w u k i have made many uf his rquations I& readily understandnhle. Howrver, lw writes expansions ofthis type in a coniuiing bariety of ways, not incorrect, but certainly not helpful t o the reader (for example, compare eqns. (3.8) and (8.1)).Mistakesareprobably no more numerous than one expects in material so dependent on complex mathematical expressions, but i t is exactly in this type of material that mistakes are especially disruptive to the learner. The author mentions his policy of "occasionally" omitting proofs, but "usually" would he more accurate; the book lies somewhere between a mathematical treatment of the irreducible tensor methods and a collection of formulas. The tirst OI the live partsof the houk presents the m e t h d r with hardly any oppllention. The second gives applirations depending on the rotation group, such as spin-orbit coupling, the Zeeman effect, and multipole expansions. The third and fourth extend these techniques to point groups, and the fifth treats applications to vector fields. There are many references, and a rather sketchy index. Anyone working with the problems for which irreducible tensor methods are appropriate should find Silver's book useful, provided he already has a reasonable degree of familiarity with these methods. As a textbook. it would be suitable onlv in an advanred m u r i p in quantum rh~mwtrv,tor use alter buch tupivs 3 angular momentum and group theory have been covered. For self study i t will prove difficult, but perhaps less
