Bibliography

B. Kerlin, Ultrasound, translated from the English by I. V. Zashchuk and V. A. Krasilnikov, edited by Professor S. N. Rzhevkin. Foreign Literature Publishing House, 1950, 307 pp. Price 17 rubles 50 kopecks.

Fundamental research on ultrasound has been carried out in the Soviet Union, but unfortunately the publication of scientific and technical literature on the use and application of ultrasonic methods in industry lags considerably behind the demand for such literature. The translation of B. Kerlin’s book to some extent fills this gap.

Kerlin is a specialist in the application of ultrasonic methods to industrial flaw detection in metals. This circumstance has, to a considerable extent, left its mark on the entire content and structure of the book. The content of the book is subordinated to practical questions of the use of ultrasound.

The first two chapters present the basic information from acoustics and ultra-acoustics needed for understanding the subsequent text. Kerlin has concentrated here fairly complete material, previously scattered through journal literature, and has presented it in a sufficiently accessible way. After corrections in the translation of a number of inaccuracies in the original, the exposition of these chapters has been raised to the level of a textbook.

The technique of using piezoelectric crystals is described in the third chapter. It is wholly devoted to questions of the application of crystals for flaw detection. The theory of the piezoelectric effect and the properties of various crystals are set out in this chapter very schematically and much worse than in other works on this subject*). Nevertheless, for an initial acquaintance with this question the material presented is quite sufficient.

The fourth chapter of the book is devoted to crystal holders. Until recently this narrow question was considered scarcely the principal one for flaw detection, and therefore the interest in it and the large number of works devoted to it are understandable. A detailed exposition of the problem in this book is quite appropriate. Soviet science answered it fully and considerably earlier than abroad.

In the fifth chapter the author again returns to an exposition of the fundamental questions of ultrasound. This time he considers resonance and reflection, as well as (in the sixth chapter) the possibilities of applying systems with undamped oscillations. The content of these chapters should advisably be considered together with the text of the seventh chapter, devoted by the author to pulsed ultrasonic systems. The author, evidently without thinking about the general impression the reader would form after reading the material of all three chapters, arranged the entire description of the methods of flaw detection in such a way and presented it in such a sequence that

*) See, for example, A. V. Shubnikov, Quartz and Its Application, Moscow–Leningrad, OGIZ, 1940.

it becomes perfectly clear that there can be only one solution to this problem, namely—the use of the pulse method. The remaining solutions, as Kerlin writes, led foreign researchers “...to the conclusion that the testing of materials by ultrasound is impossible” (p. 139). This is a very characteristic admission. Here, a few lines below, Kerlin describes the solution of this problem. The author, of course, kept silent about the fact that the question had been solved eight years earlier by Soviet science (the picture becomes clear thanks to the editor’s notes and references to Soviet scientific literature).

Thus Kerlin, without himself wishing it, fully, though indistinctly, confirmed the priority of Soviet science. It should once again be emphasized that this is definitively clarified in the present book only thanks to the editorial notes and references. The general description of pulse systems is done well, and the illustrative material used explains the text well.

The eighth chapter describes the physicochemical effects of sound. This chapter is of a general nature; it gives only initial ideas about the substance of the question and certain basic applications of ultrasound. The inclusion of this chapter in the book is justified only by the author’s desire to make the presentation fuller.

The chapter devoted to magnetostriction is also of a general nature and in no way reflects the merits of domestic science; but for the narrow purposes of ultrasonic flaw detection it describes sufficiently well the essence of the phenomena and the areas of application.

As for Kerlin’s final chapter, which sets forth questions of the practical use of ultrasound, here the author has presented rather fully the experience that had been accumulated by the time the book was published in the USA. This experience may be of benefit to engineering and technical personnel engaged in flaw detection. The editors of the translation acted correctly in expanding the material of the book by appending the articles of Sproule and Dash; these articles substantially supplement the book by adding English experience in this field of technology.

There is no doubt that Kerlin’s book, translated in the form in which it has been published by the Publishing House for Foreign Literature, will be useful to plant engineers and technicians using flaw detectors, as well as to scientific workers, graduate students, and students wishing to become acquainted with the fundamentals of ultrasonic flaw detection and ultrasonic engineering.

However, in connection with the publication of this book in Russian, we would like to raise a question of principle concerning policy in the publication of translated literature.

The point is that the original of Kerlin’s book does not possess the merits necessary for its translation (with the exception of the fact that in some of its chapters the basic foreign experience is given). The theoretical chapters are presented by the author schematically and not always successfully. Kerlin’s book is written extremely carelessly, cluttered with numerous errors and inaccuracies; it contains unjustified simplifications, carried in places to the point of vulgarization. The author is silent about the priority of Soviet science in a number of questions of ultrasonics.

In order to bring the book up to the necessary scientific level, the publishing house carried out a great deal of work. It supplemented Kerlin’s book with the latest materials on ultrasound from other foreign sources, making the book more objective and complete. The editing of the translation of the book and of the additions was entrusted to Professor S. N. Rzhevkin, a prominent specialist in the field of the physical foundations of ultrasound. The scholarly editor and the publishing house did considerable work to restore Soviet priority. About a hundred editorial notes were added to the translation, correcting inaccuracies in the exposition of the basic concepts

Bibliography

and restoring the priority of the true creators of ultrasonics.

In the Soviet edition the overwhelming majority of inaccuracies were corrected by the translators; however, this could not be done everywhere in the same way. Thus, for example, on p. 27 in Kerlin’s table the wavelengths in various materials as a function of frequency were given. In the original, above the table there is an indication that all wavelengths are given in inches, whereas in fact the wavelengths are given in centimeters. This table heading misled the translator, and this error led to a recalculation that made the table altogether incorrect. The same applies to the nomogram in Fig. 12.

A natural question arises: was it necessary for Soviet scholars to expend such enormous labor on this book? Would it not have been better to create an original book at a high scientific level than to “ennoble” a poor American one, creating for it an undeserved authority?

C. Ya. Sokolov