Rocket to the moon

BOOK SYNTHESIS OF LINEAR COMMUNICATIONNETWORKS, VOLS. I AND II, by Wilhelm Cauer. Second edition, edited by Wilhelm Klein and Franz M. Pelz and translated from the German by G. E. Knausenberger and J. N. Warfield. 866 pages, diagrams, 6 X 9 in. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1958. Price, $19.50. This translation of the 1941 German work “Theorie der linearen Wechselstromschaltungen” will be welcomed by English-speaking engineers who want a really complete reference book on network theory. The English version is an edited and expanded translation of the second revised German edition, with a section on recent advances added. The translation is divided into two volumes, bound together. Volume I, which is a basic exposition of network analysis and synthesis,

contains

seven

chapters

and two

appendices. It includes a discussion of the image-parameter method, as well as filter design, complete with tables, charts and examples. Volume II discusses the insertionparameter design method, band-separation networks and network equivalence. Appendices give the mathematical foundations of circuit theory, and a review of the latest developments since Cauer’s untimely death at the end of World War II. The book is suitable for the electrical engineer and the physicist, in terms of the technical problems involved, and to the mathematician

because

of

his

interest

in

applications. ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING, by Robert W. Metzger. 246 pages, 59 X 9 New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., in. 1958. Price, $5.95. The author, supervisor of Mathematical Programming in the Industrial Engineering Department of the General Motors Institute, has prepared an elementary description of several mathematical programming methods. He has done this to bridge the gap between

NOTES the existing texts which are either too technical or too nontechnical to be of use except to the mathematician in one case and management consultants in the other. This book is intended to serve both business and industry, as well as students in introductory courses in either mathematical programming (as a text) or operations research (as supplementary reading). The approach is a step-by-step one, with examples chosen from actual situations. The text, used and “debugged” in a class at General Motors Institute, contains eleven chapters on various methods of programming and their applications, a S-page bibliography and an index. ELEMENTARY MATRIX ALGEBRA, by Franz Hohn.

305 pages, 6 X 92 in.

The Macmillan

Co., 1958.

E.

New York,

Price, $10.00.

The material herein presented is aimed primarily at undergraduate students in nearly all the physical sciences, engineering disciplines and the social sciences. The link which makes such a small text useful in so many fields is the growing tendency to use matrix algebra as a mathematical tool. The author’s main purpose is to furnish the essentials of the method as simply and logically as possible, so that each individual may be prepared to apply the techniques to his own specialty. Specific examples, some completely worked out, add to the value of the book. The exercises vary from

simple

to

complex

and,

in

general,

represent definite applications in a particular field, although their solution does not depend on a knowledge of that field. Prerequisite for the course is elementary college algebra. NUCLEAR REACTORS FOR POWER GENERATION, edited by E. Openshaw Taylor. illustrations, pages, York, Philosophical

54 X 8$ Library,

in.

1958.

144 New Price,

$7.50. An up-to-date aspects

survey of the most important

of nuclear

power generation

is pro-