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Encyclopedia of physics (Handbuch der physik)
Book Reviews
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHYSICS (HANDBUCH DER PHYSIK), Vol. 18, Part 1, edited by H. P. J. Winjn. 592 pages, diagrams, 64 x 10 in. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1969. Price, $42.00. This book is a companion to Vol. 18, part 2, on ferromagnetism, which appeared earlier. The label “encyclopedia” is something of a misnomer, as this term suggests broad, usually superficial and uncritical coverage of the whole field, whereas actually both volumes are essentially a collection of scholarly monographs on particular areas of magnetism, which are more comparable to the longer articles in “Advances in Solid State Physics” than, to say, “International Critical Tables”. Large portions of magnetism are not t,reated in either volume, as, for instance, ordinary paramagnetic susceptibilities, but this limitation should not be regarded as grounds for criticism. The only regret is that the five separate portions of the book, not too closely related, ranging in length from 93 to 174 pages, cannot be bought separately, as the rather high price is doubtless a deterrent to many private buyers. The first article is by Verstelle and Curtis on “Paramagnetic Relaxation”. As the authors say, “The rise of paramagnetic and nuclear resonance in the late Forties and Fifties drew away the attention from relaxation phenomena, but the development of the solid state maser was the cause of a sharp increase in research . . .“. Rather surprisingly, although there have been hundreds of research papers on the subject, there has been, as far as we know, no up-to-date compendium prior to this one. Gorter’s “Paramagnetic Relaxation”, written right after the war, was a classic, including its testimony on how bravely the Dutch carried on research during the war, hence, it is most appropriate that one of the authors of the present monograph be from the University of Leiden. Both theory and experiment are carefully treated, including such ramifications as crossrelaxation and phonon bottlenecks.
The short chapter (50 pages) by D. J. E. Ingram on “Electron Spin Resonance” devotes considerable space to experimental techniques, too often neglected, but still covers the basic mathematical formalism of the spin-Hamiltonian, the g-tensor and hyperfine structure. “Structural Information from Parais the subject magnetic Resonance” treated by John E. Wertz. Whereas nuclear magnetic resonance can be used in diamagnetic materials, and is a standard tool of organic chemistry laboratories, paramagnetic resonance has what the author appropriately calls “the very restrictive requirement that the system have one or more unpaired electrons”. Nevertheless, as he says, “no other technique has given the extremely detailed descriptions of atomic or molecular environment”, and the applications to crystalline defects, molecular radicals, etc., have been legion. Excited triplet states, for instance, are of increasing interest to physical chemists, and the author appropriately gives them considerable attention. On the other hand, he omits almost entirely discussion of paramagnetic resonance involving ions of the rare earth and transition groups, on which many monographs have been written. This is a wise decision, as the reviewer knows of no review article such as the present one which concentrates on organic materials which one does not usually associate with paramagnetism. The portion of the book on “Exchange Interaction in Insulators” by Vonsovsky and Karpendo is written in German. Indirect exchange is an exceedingly tricky subject, and the authors are to be congratulated on courageously writing a lucid article on it, in which the physical content is not lost sight of in a welter of mathematical formalism. The final article by Methfessel and Mattis on magnetic semi-conductors has the title “Magnetic Semiconductors”, which may mislead some readers as it gives a mental picture primarily of silicon compounds. Instead the authors treat mainly crystals doped with ions of the
327
Book Reviews rare earth, iron or lanthanide groups. Properties as diverse as conductivity and optical spectra are treated. To explain these phenomena requires the authors to introduce both band and crystalline field theory, as well as indirect exchange. Because of all these ramifications and complications, which are authoritatively handled, this monograph (174 pages) is the longest of any in the volume. J. H. VAN VLECE Lyman Laboratory of Physics Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts
SYSTEMS
AND
TRANSFORMS
WITH
APPLI-
by A. Papoulis. 474 pages, diagrams, 6 x 9 in. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968. Price, $19.50. CATIONS
IN
OPTICS,
Several of the best optics groups in this country have an electrical engineer as theoretician on their team. This new book by A. Papoulis reveals how these valuable theoreticians are typically trained. After having learned previously the essentials of electrical signal processing in one dimension (for example, from A. Papoulis’ two earlier books on “The Fourier Integral and its Applications” and on “Probability, Random Variables, and the Stochastic Processes”) it is easy to grasp the contents of this book. The style is concise, clear almost everywhere, and the degree of rigor is sensible. In the first part which covers about two-thirds of the text the following mathematical tools for two-dimensional signal processing are developed : convolution, Fourier, Hankel, sampling, stationary phase, random signals. Then these tools are applied to diffraction, coherence and “miscellaneous”, which includes holography. A student who has mastered this book does not necessarily understand optics. But he is so well prepared in terms of mathematical concepts that he will be able to read J. W. Goodman’s “Introduction to Fourier Optics” or E. L. O’Neill’s “Introduction to Statistical Optics” like a thriller. However, it might be wiser to learn first the physics of optics from these
two books before studying the formalism in “Systems and Transforms with Applications in Optics”. Besides, as a textbook this volume is valuable also for the professional because it comes as close as anything to something like a “survey of mathematical tools in modern optics”. ADOLF LOHMANN Department of Applied Physics and Information Science University of California, La Jolla
PROPERTIES OF MATTER UNDER UNUSUAL CONDITIONS, edited by H. Mark and S. Fernback. 389 pages, diagrams, illustr., 6 x 9 in. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1969. Price, $19.50. These articles have been collected as a tribute to Edward Teller on his sixtieth birthday. The book is studded with such luminaries as Heisenberg, Wigner, T. T. Wu, Yang, Critchfield and Wheeler. Wigner writes a laudatory biographical introduction, Heisenberg discusses the problem of knowledge, Wu and Yang present an impeccable formal contribution, Critchfield analyses aspects of a Lie group, and Wheeler presents a brief and clear exposition on the relation of general relativity to the established physical theories. Solid “bread and butter” contributions follow. The late George Gamow revises the numerics of a paper originally by himself and Teller on the “Big Bang” theory of the Universe. This is not a paper which will appeal to the formalists but is an attempt to extrapolate a few difficult observations as far as possible into a realm that has not yet been explored. The calculations are based upon a linear similarity hypothesis for parameters such as the expansion velocity and galactic distances. That original paper predicted a cosmic background source of noise at about lOoK. Recent observations have isotropic detected an extraterrestrial noise, hopefully the remnant of the original fireball, and popular debates this to be at about 3*6”KoPinion One-third of the book is devoted to an excellent and extensive review article by Richard F. Post on the “Physics of High
Journal of The Franklin Institute
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHYSICS (HANDBUCH DER PHYSIK), Vol. 18, Part 1, edited by H. P. J. Winjn. 592 pages, diagrams, 64 x 10 in. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1969. Price, $42.00. This book is a companion to Vol. 18, part 2, on ferromagnetism, which appeared earlier. The label “encyclopedia” is something of a misnomer, as this term suggests broad, usually superficial and uncritical coverage of the whole field, whereas actually both volumes are essentially a collection of scholarly monographs on particular areas of magnetism, which are more comparable to the longer articles in “Advances in Solid State Physics” than, to say, “International Critical Tables”. Large portions of magnetism are not t,reated in either volume, as, for instance, ordinary paramagnetic susceptibilities, but this limitation should not be regarded as grounds for criticism. The only regret is that the five separate portions of the book, not too closely related, ranging in length from 93 to 174 pages, cannot be bought separately, as the rather high price is doubtless a deterrent to many private buyers. The first article is by Verstelle and Curtis on “Paramagnetic Relaxation”. As the authors say, “The rise of paramagnetic and nuclear resonance in the late Forties and Fifties drew away the attention from relaxation phenomena, but the development of the solid state maser was the cause of a sharp increase in research . . .“. Rather surprisingly, although there have been hundreds of research papers on the subject, there has been, as far as we know, no up-to-date compendium prior to this one. Gorter’s “Paramagnetic Relaxation”, written right after the war, was a classic, including its testimony on how bravely the Dutch carried on research during the war, hence, it is most appropriate that one of the authors of the present monograph be from the University of Leiden. Both theory and experiment are carefully treated, including such ramifications as crossrelaxation and phonon bottlenecks.
The short chapter (50 pages) by D. J. E. Ingram on “Electron Spin Resonance” devotes considerable space to experimental techniques, too often neglected, but still covers the basic mathematical formalism of the spin-Hamiltonian, the g-tensor and hyperfine structure. “Structural Information from Parais the subject magnetic Resonance” treated by John E. Wertz. Whereas nuclear magnetic resonance can be used in diamagnetic materials, and is a standard tool of organic chemistry laboratories, paramagnetic resonance has what the author appropriately calls “the very restrictive requirement that the system have one or more unpaired electrons”. Nevertheless, as he says, “no other technique has given the extremely detailed descriptions of atomic or molecular environment”, and the applications to crystalline defects, molecular radicals, etc., have been legion. Excited triplet states, for instance, are of increasing interest to physical chemists, and the author appropriately gives them considerable attention. On the other hand, he omits almost entirely discussion of paramagnetic resonance involving ions of the rare earth and transition groups, on which many monographs have been written. This is a wise decision, as the reviewer knows of no review article such as the present one which concentrates on organic materials which one does not usually associate with paramagnetism. The portion of the book on “Exchange Interaction in Insulators” by Vonsovsky and Karpendo is written in German. Indirect exchange is an exceedingly tricky subject, and the authors are to be congratulated on courageously writing a lucid article on it, in which the physical content is not lost sight of in a welter of mathematical formalism. The final article by Methfessel and Mattis on magnetic semi-conductors has the title “Magnetic Semiconductors”, which may mislead some readers as it gives a mental picture primarily of silicon compounds. Instead the authors treat mainly crystals doped with ions of the
327
Book Reviews rare earth, iron or lanthanide groups. Properties as diverse as conductivity and optical spectra are treated. To explain these phenomena requires the authors to introduce both band and crystalline field theory, as well as indirect exchange. Because of all these ramifications and complications, which are authoritatively handled, this monograph (174 pages) is the longest of any in the volume. J. H. VAN VLECE Lyman Laboratory of Physics Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts
SYSTEMS
AND
TRANSFORMS
WITH
APPLI-
by A. Papoulis. 474 pages, diagrams, 6 x 9 in. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1968. Price, $19.50. CATIONS
IN
OPTICS,
Several of the best optics groups in this country have an electrical engineer as theoretician on their team. This new book by A. Papoulis reveals how these valuable theoreticians are typically trained. After having learned previously the essentials of electrical signal processing in one dimension (for example, from A. Papoulis’ two earlier books on “The Fourier Integral and its Applications” and on “Probability, Random Variables, and the Stochastic Processes”) it is easy to grasp the contents of this book. The style is concise, clear almost everywhere, and the degree of rigor is sensible. In the first part which covers about two-thirds of the text the following mathematical tools for two-dimensional signal processing are developed : convolution, Fourier, Hankel, sampling, stationary phase, random signals. Then these tools are applied to diffraction, coherence and “miscellaneous”, which includes holography. A student who has mastered this book does not necessarily understand optics. But he is so well prepared in terms of mathematical concepts that he will be able to read J. W. Goodman’s “Introduction to Fourier Optics” or E. L. O’Neill’s “Introduction to Statistical Optics” like a thriller. However, it might be wiser to learn first the physics of optics from these
two books before studying the formalism in “Systems and Transforms with Applications in Optics”. Besides, as a textbook this volume is valuable also for the professional because it comes as close as anything to something like a “survey of mathematical tools in modern optics”. ADOLF LOHMANN Department of Applied Physics and Information Science University of California, La Jolla
PROPERTIES OF MATTER UNDER UNUSUAL CONDITIONS, edited by H. Mark and S. Fernback. 389 pages, diagrams, illustr., 6 x 9 in. New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1969. Price, $19.50. These articles have been collected as a tribute to Edward Teller on his sixtieth birthday. The book is studded with such luminaries as Heisenberg, Wigner, T. T. Wu, Yang, Critchfield and Wheeler. Wigner writes a laudatory biographical introduction, Heisenberg discusses the problem of knowledge, Wu and Yang present an impeccable formal contribution, Critchfield analyses aspects of a Lie group, and Wheeler presents a brief and clear exposition on the relation of general relativity to the established physical theories. Solid “bread and butter” contributions follow. The late George Gamow revises the numerics of a paper originally by himself and Teller on the “Big Bang” theory of the Universe. This is not a paper which will appeal to the formalists but is an attempt to extrapolate a few difficult observations as far as possible into a realm that has not yet been explored. The calculations are based upon a linear similarity hypothesis for parameters such as the expansion velocity and galactic distances. That original paper predicted a cosmic background source of noise at about lOoK. Recent observations have isotropic detected an extraterrestrial noise, hopefully the remnant of the original fireball, and popular debates this to be at about 3*6”KoPinion One-third of the book is devoted to an excellent and extensive review article by Richard F. Post on the “Physics of High
Journal of The Franklin Institute