A. P. Sokolov. Physics Laboratory Course. A guide to practical work in physics. 2nd edition, supplemented and revised by Prof. A. P. Sokolov and Prof. K. P. Yakovlev. Gosizdat, Moscow—Leningrad, 1926. XI + 373 pp. Price 3 rubles 50 kopecks.

This book is not simply a reprint of its first edition of 1909, but represents a substantial revision of it, with the aim of giving the new course the more universal character of a manual that could be useful for students’ practical work not in one physics laboratory of Moscow University alone, but in any physics laboratory.

The Physics Laboratory Course consists of an introduction (pp. 1–40), containing a description of physical measurements and the basic measuring instruments, and of two parts. The first part (pp. 41–150) is devoted to general physics, heat, and acoustics, while the second (pp. 151–336) contains problems in optics, magnetism, and electricity. At the end of the book various physical constants are given in 35 tables (pp. 344–366), as well as auxiliary tables for carrying out various kinds of calculations and an explanation of how to use a slide rule to speed up laboratory calculations.

In each of the sections mentioned, the basic and most commonly used problems are described, and methods for solving them are indicated. In all, 65 such problems have been collected, including several new ones, chiefly in the section on electricity, magnetism, and radioactivity.

The book is well produced and illustrated with a sufficient number (148) of well-executed diagrams and drawings, which make it easier to read and understand what is described.

The appearance of the 2nd edition of the Physics Laboratory Course by Prof. A. P. Sokolov and Prof. K. P. Yakovlev will be welcomed with pleasure by all our physics laboratories as a valuable manual tested by many years of work in the physics laboratory of Moscow University. One can only regret that too few problems on radioactivity have been selected and that they are not sufficiently varied. Evidently, the type of laboratory exercises in radioactivity has not yet become established; as a result, completely different problems are encountered in various manuals on radioactive measurements, whereas in the field of purely physical measurements the basic core of exercises has already managed to establish itself more or less firmly.

G. De-Metz.