Bibliography

M. A. Yuryev, V. V. Sklyarevich, V. A. Khitun. Guide to Practical Classes in Physics. Kirov Military Medical Academy, Leningrad, 1952, 308 pp.

Our methodological literature on physics is not abundant, and every new item in this field is welcome and attracts attention.

The guide under review is intended for students of higher educational institutions who do not specialize in the fields of new technology and the physical and mathematical sciences, but who study medical and biological disciplines that do not require mathematical training. This specific purpose determines both the content of the Guide and the form in which it is presented. Even on first acquaintance one may note its originality. On the basis of rich, many years’ methodological experience in higher medical education, the authors have been able to determine clearly the requirements that a textbook of this kind must satisfy.

This sharply distinguishes the work they have compiled from other similar publications—and already for this reason makes it valuable.

The content of the exercises themselves, selected for practical classes, also deserves attention. The Guide includes both the main classical problems of experimental physics (weighing, electrical measurements, questions of optics, etc.) and examples of the use of newer instruments that have become the property of the experimenter relatively recently and have not entered other analogous teaching aids (cathode oscillograph, X-ray apparatus, multigrid electron tubes, etc.).

In all, the authors propose 36 exercises from various branches of physics. Their selection should be recognized as successful and corresponding to the needs of instruction. Almost all the main parts of the course are reflected in them, with the exception of calorimetry, acoustics, and gas discharge. It seems to us that, in a repeated edition of the guide, these gaps should certainly be filled.

In medical higher educational institutions, where the caloric value of nutrition and heat exchange in the organism are substantial questions in various disciplines and require rigorous physical justification, practice in thermal measurements in the region of medium temperatures seems to us valuable, and their exclusion can hardly be considered justified.

Exercises dealing with measurements with alternating current should also be added; spring balances should be set out more concisely; and work with the electrometer and luminescence should also be included.

It should be taken into account that, with the number of hours which students in our medical higher educational institutions can devote to the physics practical course, they will hardly be able to perform the entire list of exercises proposed by the authors; consequently, a choice of problems will have to be made, and therefore it is especially desirable to expand this choice in the indicated directions.

This will increase the laboratory’s throughput and make the instructor’s work easier. Different students will carry out different lists of exercises, which, of course, will enliven the work. As for the presentation of the proposed material itself, one should note the presence of valuable information and reference materials in every experiment. This enables the student to use the hours of laboratory work with maximum productivity, without losing a single minute searching for the tabular data needed for the work or recalling the key points of the training course and the instructor’s explanations; it stimulates the student’s activity and personal initiative, giving him the opportunity to concentrate fully on experimentation.

In this respect the manual under review compares favorably with most existing aids for practical classes, in which only the basic aspect of the problem proposed for solution is presented, so that the student performs the task fully only by turning to other sources. Examples of such very successful, richly informative presentations are the exercises: 1. Precise weighing; 3. Determination of the density of solid and liquid bodies; 5. Determination of atmospheric pressure; 19. Study of the process of charging a capacitor; 20. Electron tube; 22. Electron-beam tube; 34. Determination of albedo by means of a selenium photocell; and others.

Unfortunately, not all the descriptions of experiments included in the Guide possess this valuable feature. Several exercises are described too briefly. For example, exercise 18. Determination of inductance and capacitance in an alternating-current circuit; 30. Graduation of a spectroscope; 15. Measurement of resistances by means of a bridge. In these experiments the conditions for carrying them out and the description of the apparatus are set forth too briefly, while the assignment itself is narrow in comparison with other experiments.

On the other hand, the scope of some assignments seems to us too large. It is scarcely possible for students to complete them within the hours allotted for practical work. Such experiments include: 29. Determination of the magnification of a microscope; 20. Electron tube. Perhaps each of them should have been divided into two or even three experiments.

These are the few remarks that could be made concerning the presentation of the descriptions of individual experiments.

One should welcome the good layout of the text and the very successful selection of illustrations. This facilitates the use of the Guide and increases its methodological value. There are few misprints in the text.

The new teaching aid has already gained recognition among the main groups of readers—students of medical higher educational institutions and those instructors who have the opportunity to rely on it in their daily work. Unfortunately, the limited print run of the departmental edition completely rules out the possibility of bringing it to the broad circles of students who, especially in the provinces, are in acute need precisely of such thorough manuals, rich in content. It is necessary to secure the republication of the Guide in a larger print run and, in doing so, of course, to introduce into it the small additions and corrections that we have noted and that will be discovered in the practice of using the Guide in teaching.

G. B. Ostroumov