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The experimental foundations of particle physics
arc all very readable. All in all, stimulation for even the most jaded palate. Co/in A. Ronan The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics. By Robert N. Cahn and Gerson Goldhaber. Pp. 428. Cambridge University Press. 1989. f30.00, lJs49.50.
Our present understanding of the elementary particles of matter and their interactions is encapsulated in the remarkably concise ‘standard model’. Modern texts often start from this point which, in hindsight, makes most of the erstwhile confusing experimental observations of the last 50 years easy to interpret. By contrast, Robert Cahn and Gerson Goldhaber have chosen to tell the story the way it actually happened, illustrating their text with about 60 well selected reprints of key experimental papers, starting with the discovery of the neutron, which completed the understanding of the atom, and ending with the observation of the W and Z bosons, the crucial elements that confirmed the standard model. The text itself traces the theoretical developments that accompanied the experimental advances as well as identifying the physicists who made the leading contributions. There are even exercises at the end of each chapter, some of which look rather difficult. The book is authoritatively written by eminently qualified physicists. It is an excellent complement to more conventional texts and will be appreciated by newcomers to the subject at graduate level for the additional insight it provides. Experienced practitioners will enjoy it also as a thoughtfully produced historical record and summary of the open questions that remain. J. D. DoweN Bioprotein Manufacture: A Critical Assessment. By David H. Sharp. Pp. 140. Ellis Horwood, Chichester. 7989. f34.95.
This book provides an interesting and entertaining account of the development of singlecell protein (SCP) biotechnology. The book also presents a perceptive insight into how commercial and political forces can influence the ultimate viability of a manufacturing process. Detailed consideration of the biotechnology of SCP production is prefaced by a review of technical principles which would be useful to those not fully conversant with bioengineering fundamentals. Toprina and Pruteen production by BP and ICI are considered in the greatest detail and these accounts should be required reading for all involved in, or contemplating, large-scale SCP production. It is clearly illustrated how the elegant achievements of microbiologists and engineers in optimizing production efficiency can be reduced to insignificance by external changes in political opinion or market prices. Other SCP processes by Shell and Hoechst. and brief accounts of Russian and Japanese work, are also included but,
100
perhaps surprisingly, SCP from Whey in France and USA are not mentioned. This book, while of considerable interest to biotechnologists, will, I suspect, be read most avidly by senior management in industry. Initiating large-scale biotechnologybased processes poses considerable problems, and David Sharp provides a wealth of relevant informed comment and analysis in an eminently readable account. G. H. Fynn
Vogel’s Textbook of Quantitative Chemical Analysis. 5th Edn. Revised by G. H. Jeffery, J. Bassett, J. Mendham and R. C. Denney. Pp. 877. Longman, Harlow. 1989. f34.00.
This work differs from the 4th edition largely in expansion of the separations section and contraction of gravimetric methods. As with earlier Vogel’s, the book offers a balanced blend of chemical and readily accessible instrumental methods. Examples of analyses are still predominantly inorganic but the increased organic content has required removal of the adjective ‘Inorganic’ from the title. The strength of the book lies in the vast number of immediately applicable analyses detailed; thus in the gravimetric and absorptiometric analysis sections methods for all common feasible elements are given. This, though, unavoidably limits the amount of theoretical and instrumental detail that can be included in the physical methods described. Some space is wasted in description of obsolete equipment such as the Duboscq calorimeter and photographic spectrographs, but overall the Thames Polytechnic authors are to be congratulated on producing a readable, up-to-date, well-referenced text which may be recommended to general analysts and students of the subject. M.A Leonard Patterns in Plant Development. 2nd Edn. By Taylor A. Steeves and Ian M. Sussex. Pp. 388. Cambridge University Press. 1989. Hardback f27.50, lJS$44.50; paperback f9.95, lJS$14.95.
This edition, in its shiny Rousseau’s Exotic Landscape cover, is 80 pages longer than the 1972version. Although the general format of the 17 chapters remains unchanged, each has been updated, and given a molecular biological input and a thrust directed even more strongly to developmental pattern. Embryonic differentiation in lower and higher plants, the structure and organization of apices and meristems. and the sequential progression of morphogenetic change are expertly portrayed from well chosen systems. In experimental examples that survey the identification and formation of shoot initials with evidence for the zonal or chimeric configurations they engender and the permanency of their influence during development. the authors have presented a challenging analysis of current concepts in organogenesis. They review the field theory in phyllotaxis. the nature of organ determination. the origin
of dorsiventrality, and the expression of heterophylly. The signals directing the transformation of apices from the vegetative to the reproductive state, the control of shoot elongation, and the ever-tantalizing questions of apical dominance and the establishment of branching patterns receive critical attention. While two-thirds of the book concerns the shoot apex, important chapters are also devoted to root and cambial meristems and to the plasticity and totipotence of single cells. The work is highly informative, beautifully written, and excellently illustrated. Both subject and author indexes are provided. A classic work for all in plant biology and easily affordable in paper back. Daphne J. Osborne Theory of Earth Science. By Wolf von Engelhardt and J&g Zimmerman. Pp. 387. Cambridge University Press. 1988. f45.00, fJS$75.00.
One of the great intellectual achievements of the last 50 years has been the solution by Sir Karl Popper of the problem presented by scientific induction. Like so many great advances, it was deceptively simple: scientists never prove a theory to be true, they eliminate the false theories by testing them against observations (the principle of falsification). He stated it memorably; science consists of all theories that have not been disproved; a strong theory is one which contains numerous possibilities of disproof. Popper was especially influenced by physics (as were all the Vienna circle), but there is a significant difference between the laboratory sciences and that where the events studied are remote in space, like astronomy or the Earth’s interior, or in time, like biological evolution and the historical geosciences. This book is a most timely and authoritative exposition of the scientific method as it is practiced in the geosciences. In these, controlled laboratory experiments are rare: Nature has done the experiment, but not often the optimum one we would desire! Harold Urey, aware of this problem, was wont to begin a detailed and persuasive explanation of some event in the early solar system with the disarming remark; ‘Mind you. I wasn’t there at the time, but . . .’ The authors analyse great advances: continental drift and its integration into plate tectonics and the meteoritic bombardment theory of lunar craters, and the recognition of such structures on the Earth. For many readers this will be the most instructive part, for the first chapters, systematizing the procedures of geoscience, use somewhat forbidding linguistics. They, rightly in my view, do not stress Kuhn’s concept of the ‘paradigm’ so often misused as a catchword in American geoscientists’ papers. This fine book causes one to reflect on the similarity between the methods of the historian and archaeologist and those of the geologist. The historian. reconstructing past events. assessingthe reliability of the written records. searching for missing clues, lifting a
Our present understanding of the elementary particles of matter and their interactions is encapsulated in the remarkably concise ‘standard model’. Modern texts often start from this point which, in hindsight, makes most of the erstwhile confusing experimental observations of the last 50 years easy to interpret. By contrast, Robert Cahn and Gerson Goldhaber have chosen to tell the story the way it actually happened, illustrating their text with about 60 well selected reprints of key experimental papers, starting with the discovery of the neutron, which completed the understanding of the atom, and ending with the observation of the W and Z bosons, the crucial elements that confirmed the standard model. The text itself traces the theoretical developments that accompanied the experimental advances as well as identifying the physicists who made the leading contributions. There are even exercises at the end of each chapter, some of which look rather difficult. The book is authoritatively written by eminently qualified physicists. It is an excellent complement to more conventional texts and will be appreciated by newcomers to the subject at graduate level for the additional insight it provides. Experienced practitioners will enjoy it also as a thoughtfully produced historical record and summary of the open questions that remain. J. D. DoweN Bioprotein Manufacture: A Critical Assessment. By David H. Sharp. Pp. 140. Ellis Horwood, Chichester. 7989. f34.95.
This book provides an interesting and entertaining account of the development of singlecell protein (SCP) biotechnology. The book also presents a perceptive insight into how commercial and political forces can influence the ultimate viability of a manufacturing process. Detailed consideration of the biotechnology of SCP production is prefaced by a review of technical principles which would be useful to those not fully conversant with bioengineering fundamentals. Toprina and Pruteen production by BP and ICI are considered in the greatest detail and these accounts should be required reading for all involved in, or contemplating, large-scale SCP production. It is clearly illustrated how the elegant achievements of microbiologists and engineers in optimizing production efficiency can be reduced to insignificance by external changes in political opinion or market prices. Other SCP processes by Shell and Hoechst. and brief accounts of Russian and Japanese work, are also included but,
100
perhaps surprisingly, SCP from Whey in France and USA are not mentioned. This book, while of considerable interest to biotechnologists, will, I suspect, be read most avidly by senior management in industry. Initiating large-scale biotechnologybased processes poses considerable problems, and David Sharp provides a wealth of relevant informed comment and analysis in an eminently readable account. G. H. Fynn
Vogel’s Textbook of Quantitative Chemical Analysis. 5th Edn. Revised by G. H. Jeffery, J. Bassett, J. Mendham and R. C. Denney. Pp. 877. Longman, Harlow. 1989. f34.00.
This work differs from the 4th edition largely in expansion of the separations section and contraction of gravimetric methods. As with earlier Vogel’s, the book offers a balanced blend of chemical and readily accessible instrumental methods. Examples of analyses are still predominantly inorganic but the increased organic content has required removal of the adjective ‘Inorganic’ from the title. The strength of the book lies in the vast number of immediately applicable analyses detailed; thus in the gravimetric and absorptiometric analysis sections methods for all common feasible elements are given. This, though, unavoidably limits the amount of theoretical and instrumental detail that can be included in the physical methods described. Some space is wasted in description of obsolete equipment such as the Duboscq calorimeter and photographic spectrographs, but overall the Thames Polytechnic authors are to be congratulated on producing a readable, up-to-date, well-referenced text which may be recommended to general analysts and students of the subject. M.A Leonard Patterns in Plant Development. 2nd Edn. By Taylor A. Steeves and Ian M. Sussex. Pp. 388. Cambridge University Press. 1989. Hardback f27.50, lJS$44.50; paperback f9.95, lJS$14.95.
This edition, in its shiny Rousseau’s Exotic Landscape cover, is 80 pages longer than the 1972version. Although the general format of the 17 chapters remains unchanged, each has been updated, and given a molecular biological input and a thrust directed even more strongly to developmental pattern. Embryonic differentiation in lower and higher plants, the structure and organization of apices and meristems. and the sequential progression of morphogenetic change are expertly portrayed from well chosen systems. In experimental examples that survey the identification and formation of shoot initials with evidence for the zonal or chimeric configurations they engender and the permanency of their influence during development. the authors have presented a challenging analysis of current concepts in organogenesis. They review the field theory in phyllotaxis. the nature of organ determination. the origin
of dorsiventrality, and the expression of heterophylly. The signals directing the transformation of apices from the vegetative to the reproductive state, the control of shoot elongation, and the ever-tantalizing questions of apical dominance and the establishment of branching patterns receive critical attention. While two-thirds of the book concerns the shoot apex, important chapters are also devoted to root and cambial meristems and to the plasticity and totipotence of single cells. The work is highly informative, beautifully written, and excellently illustrated. Both subject and author indexes are provided. A classic work for all in plant biology and easily affordable in paper back. Daphne J. Osborne Theory of Earth Science. By Wolf von Engelhardt and J&g Zimmerman. Pp. 387. Cambridge University Press. 1988. f45.00, fJS$75.00.
One of the great intellectual achievements of the last 50 years has been the solution by Sir Karl Popper of the problem presented by scientific induction. Like so many great advances, it was deceptively simple: scientists never prove a theory to be true, they eliminate the false theories by testing them against observations (the principle of falsification). He stated it memorably; science consists of all theories that have not been disproved; a strong theory is one which contains numerous possibilities of disproof. Popper was especially influenced by physics (as were all the Vienna circle), but there is a significant difference between the laboratory sciences and that where the events studied are remote in space, like astronomy or the Earth’s interior, or in time, like biological evolution and the historical geosciences. This book is a most timely and authoritative exposition of the scientific method as it is practiced in the geosciences. In these, controlled laboratory experiments are rare: Nature has done the experiment, but not often the optimum one we would desire! Harold Urey, aware of this problem, was wont to begin a detailed and persuasive explanation of some event in the early solar system with the disarming remark; ‘Mind you. I wasn’t there at the time, but . . .’ The authors analyse great advances: continental drift and its integration into plate tectonics and the meteoritic bombardment theory of lunar craters, and the recognition of such structures on the Earth. For many readers this will be the most instructive part, for the first chapters, systematizing the procedures of geoscience, use somewhat forbidding linguistics. They, rightly in my view, do not stress Kuhn’s concept of the ‘paradigm’ so often misused as a catchword in American geoscientists’ papers. This fine book causes one to reflect on the similarity between the methods of the historian and archaeologist and those of the geologist. The historian. reconstructing past events. assessingthe reliability of the written records. searching for missing clues, lifting a