BOOK REVIEWS techniques. I would venture to suggest. that hydrogen bonding deserves more ertensive treatment than i t receives, as do the strengths of acids from a t.hermodynamicpoint of view. Exceptions to the rule foroxyacidstrengt,hs due toPauling (whose view of met,albonding g e k short shrift) are not given (I,529; cf. Cott,on and Wilkinson p. 135, who do not credit Pauling). The discussion of ortho and par*hydrogen is oversimplified, and t.he one periodic table in the book (no endpapers) seems 8. poor choice. The paramagnetism of the B2 molecule is mentioned in the text, but the accompanying m.0. filling diagram would predict a diamagnetic species. Defunct radiomagnesium exchange results are used to discount the Schlenk equilibrium in Crignard system-. The "25 words-orless" explanation of the Miissbaoer effect is a little spotty, as is the discussion of the ditl'erences between carbon and silicon whioh would have been greably improved with reference to Sommer's book on silicon reaction mechanisms. Finally the typographicd errors detected Professor Wannapat's name spelled wit,h a "b" an page 640 of volume one and the hydrogen and hydroxyl ion concentrations are given as 10" em-= in Figure 6.26. Sounds fine, but is lhis redly inorganic
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chemistry? I submit t,o my colleagues that the trend set by this text will be ignored a t their peril. We have all come a long way from Psrt,ington (1st ed., 1921) and Mellor (1st ed., 1912); even Moeller (1952) now seems very dated. Judging from the bewildering jumble of correlations found in the volumes under review, we have a fair way to go yet. Those of u s who regard descriptive chemistry as the permanent, reproducible, and therefore real part of chemistry will be sorry t o see only that part which e m be fit into the neat correlitt,ions retained. For example the well-behaved lanthanides and actinides get two chapters of 65 pages while boron, carhon, silicon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and arsenic get one chapter of 43 pages. Appalling! But consider the postscript to t,he metals chapter in volume two. IIere the material of the previous chapters is d i d l e d into a discussion of the familiar old Bunsen qual. and. scheme, which it turns out, in order to consider intelligently sends 11s t,o the very limits of current understanding. Phillips and Williams in thh text have continually anticipated the students' quest,ion, "Why?" This, t,oo, is inorganic chemistry.
J . J . ZUCHERMAN Conell Unive?sity Hhaea, New York
Phyricd Chemistry
Frank T . Gucker and Ralph I,. Seiluri, bath of Indiana Univerqity, Bloorniugton. W. W. NurLvn a d Co., IIII.., New York, 1 9 6 6 xx f 824 pp. Figs. and tables 17.5 X 23.5 rm. $10.
This new hook contains the itsnal f a x offered by an irltmdnct,ory physical e h ~ m istry text plus a few topics less commmly covered. The lst,ter indudes a. chapter 1111 mathematical background and three chxpt e n on n~rclear chemistl.y and phyiirs. Topics which are not disr~lssedand whirh have received mverage in other recent t,exts are t,ranspwt pnjperties and macromdeenles. At bhe end of each chapter the srtthors have included a reading list which is divided inlo books, articles, and sources of data. Nearly all of bhese have eomment,s by the authors. This cmnpilstiun is to be applauded, but. ill a few instances, misinfoimation has bee11 Kiven (e.g., the statement that N. 13. Slater's book, "Theory uf Unimo1ec11l:ir Reactions" . . desarihei themathemntirnl development of bhe q~laotnm-meehal~ic:l theory of ~mimolecdar reactions . 1s misleading since Slater's theory as RPIIerdly applied is not quantum mechanical). The text does not aspire to the level of Moore or Eggers, etal., in its m a t h e m a l i d developmenl. One year of calculus woldd
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BOOK REVIEWS
atomic and molecolsr structure and spectroscopy 21.e given 100 pages. The author.; ttfmin in the;]. treatment of the~modynamirsfrom using r , the chemical potential. This seems cnrious and leads to a m e s i t \ d o n n where the student, could possibly he confwed. For example, t,he development of Gihh's pha-e rule is carried out by using a function called the molar free energy of a component and not. the rhemiral potential. I n summary, the text could be used in su introdnct,my course hut considerable supplementing would he necessary in order to give the student a more balanced ovel; view of phyxical chemistl.y, past R I I ~present.
be sufficient to handle the mathematics used. This would make it soitable far a non-majors course where the level of mathematicalsophisticatiot~in the student is often insnflieient for the two texts mentioned above. The book is, on the whole, well w i t t e n but a few points detract more than a little in the opinion of this reviewer. A at.xte ment made hy the authors in the preface is "The book seeks to nhow the develnpment and present status of the basic fields of physical chemistry." I n their endeavor MORLEYRUSSELL to show the present stntus they have not, Norlhern Ilbnois Zlnivemity been rnmpletely auccessfd. The chapter DeKnlh on chemical kinetic3 does not show the present status of this area. 11,fact vi~.tually everything in this chapter wm known prior to t,he Second World War. When one considers the immeuse developBasic Concepts in Quantum Mechanics ment in chemical kinetics since t,hnt time, it is difficult to understand why some of Alezander Kompaneyrts, Instit,~lt,e of these findings were not inelt~ded. Other Chemical Physics of the Academy of topics covered in t,his hook show the same Sciences, U.S.S.R. Trmslated by tendency to emphasize the clas~irala?Swipta Technics, Ine. Trans. ed. by pects relative to recent developments 1,eon F. Landovitz, Yeshiva University, thongh not to the extreme meutioned New York. Reinhold Publishing Corp., above. T h w , 8olnbion chemistry (rhnpler New York, 1966. vi 1.52 pp. Figt,itles are: Solutions of Nmelert~~r,lytes, ures. 12.5 X 18.5 em. Paperbound. Dissociation and Activity of Elert,mlytea, $3.95. Acid-Base Equilibria, C;xlvmia and Moctrolytic Cells, and Eleetmlytir C O ~ ~ I I C - This is a somlementarv book intended tanee), which is mainly clnrsic;tl ill this far introdnctory physics courses. T h e text, takes 200 pages of the text whel.ens author nssltmei the reader is familiar with
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the elemenbary concepts of wave motion, which figure importantly in his f i a t chapter; beyond that his demands upon the reader's prior knowledge of physics and mathematics are minimal. No calculus is used; in fact, i t is the author's avowed aim to show t h a t "the basic concepts of quantum mechanics can be defined without recourse to higher mthemalics" [our italics]. The t,ext is illustrated with 34 line driwings. There are no problems. The book contains nine short,, nutharitn, live, clearly-written chapters. The English translation is excellent. Noteworthy features are: the use of Huygens's eonstroction-"the simplest explanation of optical phenomena without recowre to complicated calc,dat,ions"-to illustrate the psyehologicnllg and scientific all,^ important point. that "in many ways the laws of optics and mechanics are equivalent,"; the use of the uncertainty relation to derive, for example, by algebrsic methods, the sero point energy of a n harmonic oscillator; the treatment of angular momentom, ill two chapters on the behavior of electrons in atoms; and the discussion of llirae's theory. The book is enlivened by the author's feeling for the historical development of q u a n t k n mechanics, and by his sharp, critical sense. "IIow did he [Bohr] guess t,hat Planck's constant must be divided by 27 in order to obtain t h e angular momentum in the orbit,? According t o his own words, no other coefficient would fit Balmer's formula." And, "We must al-
(Continued on page A88)
