Bibliography

J. P. Garnwell and J. J. Livingood. Experimental Atomic Physics. Translated from English by N. S. Khlebnikov. ONTI, Main Editorial Office of General Technical Literature. Moscow—Leningrad, 1936. 488 pp., price bound 12 rubles.

The book by the two American physicists Livingood and Garnwell differs very substantially from all other books on atomic physics available in Soviet and foreign literature. In its theoretical part it is a concise but well-compiled textbook. The first two chapters are devoted to radiation. First, questions connected with the wave nature of light are considered (the velocity of propagation, the foundations of the electromagnetic theory of light); this is followed by the theory of black-body radiation, which ends with the derivation of Planck’s formula. In the next two chapters (III and IV) the fundamentals of atomistics are set forth (Brownian motion, determination of the charge and mass of the electron). Then comes a chapter devoted to matter waves (V), and a number of chapters (VI–IX) devoted to electronic (thermionic currents, photoelectric effects) and optical phenomena (the theory of line spectra, the excited state of atoms, X-rays). The final chapter presents the doctrine of radioactivity and the atomic nucleus. The exposition is intended for a reader familiar with the fundamentals of physics and with mathematical analysis, but at this level it is sufficiently elementary and quite accessible to students of approximately the third year of universities.

However, the essence of the book is by no means in this theoretical part. In accordance with the title of the book, the central place in it is given to experiment. Every theoretical proposition is illustrated by a description of the corresponding experiments. Moreover, the descriptions are given not in schematic form, as is usually done, but in such a way that a physicist-reader can carry out these experiments himself in the laboratory. The experimental setups described by the authors do not always coincide exactly with those described in the literature. The authors present schemes tested by themselves; they report many small details which in most cases play a decisive role in the success of the experiment; finally, at the end of each chapter they give a large number of carefully selected references to the original literature so that the novice physicist may make use of it. A considerable number of the experiments described in this book can be assigned as student tasks for advanced practical courses. Others are highly suitable as assignments for special work by senior physics students, or may be used for faculty work wherever there is no time for special work (for example, in pedagogical institutes of higher education). We are confident that this book will play a major role in bringing new life to our student practical courses and will bring much benefit and pleasure to all lovers of serious physical experiment.

The Russian translation has been carried out satisfactorily. Of course, in addition to the “noted” misprints there are also “unnoticed” ones. Among them we found none especially substantial, although, of course, it would be better if,

for example, on the right-hand side of the wave equation there stood \(\frac{1}{w^2}\frac{\partial^2\psi}{\partial t^2}\), and not \(\frac{1}{w}\frac{\partial^2\psi}{\partial t^2}\), as shown on p. 168. In addition, the translator, unfortunately, has distorted certain very well-known names. Thus, for example, he has turned the well-known German spectroscopist Back into an Englishman by calling him Bäck, and has renamed Wiechert as Weichert. All these are trifles, but they are conspicuous, and in such a good book it would have been desirable to be free even of minor defects.

E. Shpolsky, Moscow