Editor: W. F. KIEFFER College of Woosfer
Woatar, Ohio
Come L e l Us Play God
Leroy G. Augemtein, Michigan State University, East Lansing. Harper and Row, New York, 1969. ix 150 pp. 14.5 X 21.5 cm. $4.95.
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This hook presents what Professor Augenstein calls ',the implications of what science is doing to man's concept of himself." I n the preface he states that he has attempted "to do three things. First, to bring you up to date in a. number of areas of science which I find terribly exciting and important and to anticipate the direction research is likely to go, or even must go. Second, to define the overall ethical dilemmas we face and describe in detail the problems unique to individual developments. Finally, I wrestle with the crucial issue of who should be making these decisions and what values we should use." The growth of science and technology has brought mankind not only to new sttainments, hut to new decisions of vital importance. The growing practice of making organ transplants, the possibility of control of offspring through gene manipulation, the prolonging of life through new measures, the opportunities for mind alteration, and other issues of like nature are treated a t length. Population explosion and responsible pare& hood are presented in a light that is probably new to most readers. The related social and ethical problems are brought out with a. jolting thoroughness. Dr. Augenstein writes like he speaksclearly and simply, hut with a penetrating urgency about his concerns. H e does not
allow the reader to be a spectator. Case histories are used throughout and rarely does a writer face his readers with as many explicit questions, as persistently. Who should get a spare organ? When is s. person dead? Under what conditions is abortion justifiable? Who is to decide? " . . .Where do you draw the line? I trust me to draw the line, but not you, and I suspect you feel the same, the other way around." When we have a conflict of rights, who determines the final judgment? On what bbasis? If you were on the jury to decide, what would you do? The writer has had broad personal experience in facing such questions. The case histories are very real and he is very effective in presenting them. Not only is he chairman of the department of biophysics a t the Michigan State University, but he is a writer and lecturer on seienoe
Seminary. The reviewer considers this book to be one of the most important to be published in several decades. Certainly i t is a "must" in the area. of social resoansihilitv of scientists. However, i t is not only the scientist who should study this book. It should be presented to high school and college students who, as the author indicates, may he the ones to pay the price for whatever negligence we older folks show. The author does have his constructive approaches. He outlines the direct procedure which he would follow in approaching these crises. Fur-
thermore he includes five fundamental beliefs which guide him as he wrestles with various eases. He has done his homework. H e asks the rest of us to do the same. He says that some may "argue that man should never he so arrogant as to 'play God.' Nonsense! Each of us is here today because two people played God-they procreated a life." As these new developments come into more prominence, we "shall he making godlike decisions. The question is not whether we will or will not play God, hut whether we have i t in us to do i t in the responsible way adults should, or in the trivial, irresponsible way df the child who does not face up to the task of determining his awn destiny."
JOHN W . CHITTUM The College of Wooster Woosler, Ohio Theoretical Inorganic Chemistry
M . Clyde Day, Jr. and Joel Setbin, both of Louisiana State University, Bston Rouge. 2nd ed. Reinhold Book C o p , New York, 1969. xviii 590 pp. Figs. and tables. 16 x 23.5 om. $12.95.
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Although there are now lots of faculty members in American colleges and universities labeled as inorganic chemists, no clear picture has evolved in recent years as to what should he taught to students about the chemistry of the elements besides carbon. Textbooks of inorganic chemistry range from those which are research oriented and present much information on contemporary investigations to those which concentrate on principles and correlations of information. Professors Day and Selbiu have a very strong contender in the latter category. The first edibion of this t,ext (reviewed THIS JOURNAL, 39, 432 (1962)) filled a definite need a t the time. However, it was somewhat like ones lecture notes a t the end of the first year of teaching a. course. Things often seemed disconnected, and there were annoying minor errors. The most striking impression made by the second edition is that it is a. very mueh more polished work and that Reinhold has has done a mueh neater job of production. Basically, the contents of this edition are similar to those of the first. The chapter on the structure of the nucleus has been deleted, advances in coordination chemistry during the past seven years have led to an expansion of this subject to two chapters, and a lengbhy treat,ment. of the crystalline state has been added. The latter ch%pt,er treats symmeiry in quite some detail. The reviewer knows of no other undergraduate text which gives such a thorough introduction to crystal morphology. Because of the great increase in the use of X-ray cry* tallography by inorganic chemists, this seems like a. step in the right direction. Almost all of the discussion is presented in termsof thelfermann-Mauwinrather than the Schoenfiies symbolism which is described only in an appendix. In spite of the emphasis on the symmetry of the cube and other formq, the concept of s. group is not developed anywhere. Conse-
Volume 47, Number 2, February 1970
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book reviews quenbly, the uses of symmetry in later discussions of molecular orbitals and ahsorption spectra. of transition metal complexes will not seem to the student to beer any relation t,o the concepts of symmetry introduced with the crystalline state chapter. A little time spent in class can easily bridge this gap. Students always have liked this book because the derivations involved in the discussion of wave mechanics, e.g., the particle in one and t,hree dimensional boxes and the hydrogen atom, are carried out, in detail. I n fact the last time the reviewer looked for the first edition on the reserve shelf of the library, he found that. i t had been stolen which is a good cont,emporary criterion for a text's popularit,y. This book should serve admirably for an undergraduate course or perhaps for a graduate survey for studenk not majoring in inorganic chemistry. I n many respects i t is better suited to an integrated curriculum than to a highly strucbured one. I n t,he latter case the material in the three chapten on qnantnm theory, wave mechanics, and chemical bonding probably will be taught from a physical chemistry text.. Much of the three chapters on electromotive force, acids and bases, and non-aqueous solvents will have been covered in the generd-analytical sequence. Even where this is true, the six remaining chapters provide a good basis for a course in coordin~tionchemistry. R. STUARTTOBIAS Purdue University Lafayette, Indiana
Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry
Robert J. Angelici, Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames. W. B. Saunders Co., Phil* 203 pp. Figs. delphis, 1969. xi and tables. 16 X 24.5 cm. $8.
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I n the not too distant past, the instructor of an inorganic laboratory course was hard put to locate suitable preparations for his students and was forced to select experiments from "Inorganic Syntheses," the original literature, or the few manuals then available. With recent increased interest and research in the inorganic field, the situation has changed radically. Within the last decade no fewer than half a dozen inorganic lahoratory manuals have been puhlished by American presses. Professor Angeliei's book is a n inspired example of the new, slim, streamlined look in modern inorganic manuals. Designed as "a practical manual for an upper-level inorganic lahoratory course" (one quarter or one semester, with two 3-hour lahoratory periods per week), i t is intended "to prepere the junior, senior, or first year graduate student for graduate-level or industrid research." Inorganic manuels have generally fallen into one of three broad cstegoriescollections of a great number of procedures with only minimal space devoted
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Journol o f Chemicol Educofion
to theory; hooks emphasizing theory and techniques with a few detailed, illustrative experiments appended; and manuals with an integrated approach consisting of a balanced blend of theory and teehnioue with a. reasonable number of detailed preparations. Angelici's manual, which contains 20 carefully selected experiments, belongs to the third category. The experiments illustrate the fundamentals of the inorganic laboratory techniques of synthesis, purification, and compound characteriestion. For example, synthetic techniques are employed in experiments requiring a vacuum line, a high temperature furnace, a dry box or hag, nanaqueous solvents (NHs and NsO,), and sn electmlytic cell. Methods of purification include ion exchange, vacuum sublimation, thin-layeyer and column chromatography, distillation, recrystallization, and extraction, while methods of characterization include infrared, nltraviolet-visible, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, ionic conductivity, optical rotation, msgnetic susceptihility, chemical reactivity and ratesof reaction, and equilibrium constants for metal complex formation. For the convenience of schools which do not possess nuclear magnetic resonance or mass spectral facilities, these spectra of t,he reaction products are provided for student interpretation. The experiments were selected on the basis of four practical considerations: inherently dangerous procedures were avoided; with t,wo duly noted exceptions, only experiments which can he completed in the course of a 3-hour lahoratory period were included; preparations were limited to those requiring only relatively inexpensive reagents; and in order to generate greater student interest and to place the student in the shoes of an actual research chemist, the preparations emphasize compoundswhich are either not commercially available or are very expensive when produced eommercidy. Thus the syntheses in the manual "are largely of compounds which have only been recently prepared and which border an the frontiers of research." Msny types of ompounds are represented, but coordination compounds, orgauometdlics, and anhydrous suhstances are emphasized. Although exotic compounds such as [1,3,5-CsHa(CHs)dMo(CO)Z and [CsH6Fe(CO)dz (this preparation is the most challenging in the manual) are featured, perennial favorites such as KISnOa and [Co(NHa),COaINOa are not neglected. Each experiment contains a discussion of historical, theoretical, and experimental background, a detailed experimental procedure, including prominent safety precautions, a list of items to be included and questions t o he answered in the report, and s list of classified and annotated references, many as recent as 1968. The results ohtained by the student will often require interpretation, and he is encouraged to consult original papers and standard reference works. The ~ r e ~ a r a t i o nmay s be performed in any order except for a few eases in which the product of a. previous synthesis is required as a starting material for a later
experiment. An introductory chapter discusses safety precautions, hasic lilboratory procedures, methods of keeping a research notebook, and standard references. The hook is replete with clear figures, tahles, and equations. Hints on laboratory organization and commercial sources for special equipment and reagents are provided in a separate chapter entitled Notes to Instructor. An index of compounds as well as a general index concludes the volume. Errata are not numerous and are mostly of the typographical sort. The repeated use of "Inorgsnic Synthesis" for the journal Inorganic Syntheses is annoying but in no way confusing. A campmison of this new manual with others already published is best left to the instructor. Experience has shown that students rsrelyread discussions of theory unless they are included in the actual experiment as is done in Angelici's hook. A number of competing manuals separate theory from practice, and an instructor with strong feelings about this point might prefer this book to its competitors on this hasis alone. Before making a choice of s. manual for his course, an instructor, however, should certainly examine carefully the highly praised and recently puhlished English manual, Pass and S u b liffe's "Prettied Inorganic Chemistry" (more than 90 preparations) [THIS JOURNAL, 46, A44(1969)1, the slightly alder Adams and Raynor's "Advanced Practical Inorganic Chemistry" (almost one hundred highly abbreviated experiments) 43, 222 (1966)1, and the [THISJOURNAL, open-ended, heuristic Jolly's "Synt,hetic Inorganic Chemistry" [(THIS JOURNAL, 38, 157 (1961)l. He may also wish to consider Grindley's "An Advanced Course in Practical Inorganic Chemistry" (Bnttenvorths, 1964), Dodd and Robinson's "Experimental Inorganic Chemistry" (Elsevier, 1954), and Palmer's "Experimental Inorganic Chemistry" [THIS JOURNAL,32, 218 (1955)]. He should also not overlook for supplementary use works which me largely collections of procedures such as Schlessinger's "Inorganic Lsboratory Preparations" (Chemical Publ. Co., 1962), Brauer's 2-volume "Handbook of Preparative Inorganic Chemistry" now availahle in English tramlation (Aeademic, 1963), or that much used journal in book format Inorganic Syntheses. All lahoratory manuals are the product of a selective process on the part of the author. I n the ideal case, the author's choice jibes with the individual instructor's own needs and preferences, an extremely rare event. As long as fielectivity is involved, obviously no one manual will satisfy all instructors. Nevertheless, Professor Angeliei's book, whether used alone or in conjunction with any of the above cited manuals, will he found most useful to the instructor of almost any inorganic lahoratory course. At lhe very least, the publication of this well conceived and well executed hook has expanded the choice rwd.ihble to such instructors. GEORGE B. KAUFFMAN California State College Fmsno (Continued on page A128)
