Table of contents

To ensure that your readers do not acquire a mistaken impression about 'Science in Ireland' (Physics Bulletin September 1975) I should like to add the following relevant facts. First, the Irish Branch of The Institute of Physics has members from both the United Kingdom (Ulster) and the Republic of Ireland (Eire).

I have heard on a number of occasions, the last being at the 3EMF, the term ferroelectrician applied to those working in the field of ferroelectricity. With increasing entropy may we also expect piezoelectricians and pyroelectricians; or with decreasing entropy, dielectricians?

I should like to protest about the way scientific and technical authors are treated by many publishing houses. It is by no means uncommon for publishers to retain a manuscript for three months or more and then return it with a meaningless stock phrase such as 'This does not meet our highly specialized list' or 'This does not fit in with our present publishing plans'.

The September 1975 issue of Physics Bulletin carried an article headed 'Magnetic appeal' about new niobium–tin superconductors. This gave the impression that these superconductors are in the form of ribbon, whereas the whole point of the new materials is that they are wires, and to a large extent, supercede the older ribbons.

The Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) has been concerned for some time about the grading of electron microscope technicians in universities. In general it would appear that there has been little or no recognition of technical skills and advancement has been prevented in some cases.

In the article 'Teamwork and coffee in the lab' published in the September issue of Physics Bulletin (p396) we mentioned that we had borrowed or stolen material. We should like to acknowledge our sources as other members of the Nuffield sponsored Higher Education Learning Project (Physics), HELP(P), which is specifically concerned with the interchange of knowledge and experience between teachers of physics in tertiary education.

In a recent letter (Physics Bulletin October 1975 p429) Dr Sharma voiced a strong opinion on an oft-debated question concerning the knowledge of developing mathematical language required for pursuing the problems of theoretical physics. (See for example the report of Professor Edwards' working party (Physics Bulletin April 1973 p226).)

Governments' publicly stated objectives for research and development do not always coincide with the eventual outcome. In a report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the OECD examines the changing priorities for government R and D as revealed in their budgets and planning procedures.

Cutbacks in public spending have hit the universities harder than other sectors of education and within the universities themselves, science departments harder than other departments and faculties. Throughout its enquiry, the Science Subcommittee of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, which has been looking into the funding of research in British universities, has heard much evidence from universities and research financing bodies to suggest that the dual system of support for university scientific research has broken down.

Some months ago, amidst the mixed admiration and commiseration of my friends and colleagues, I left the 'sinking ship' of British education for a stint in the Tropics. It was around nine months between first application to teach in Nigeria and our actual arrival in Kano.

Physicists and engineers frequently get involved in discussions about the management, administration and cost of research and I thought it might be interesting to contribute a few facts which relate to our laboratory, a fairly representative industrial research laboratory in electronics. This may spark off some other contributions from colleagues who can complete the picture by giving information from other areas or from similar laboratories where things are done differently.

During the last three years the overall cost to The Institute of Physics of administering and financing its programme of conferences has increased alarmingly. This, coupled with the decrease in conference attendance by approximately 20% from 1972 to 1974, has led the Meetings Committee to estimate a possible deficit of £34 000 (32% of the costs) for 1976 using the present scale of charges.

British universities have many troubles – some temporary and others more profound. Student unrest is among the least of the difficulties.

Resolutions of 0.31 nm at screen magnifications greater than 10⁶ are possible using the technique of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). First developed about six or seven years ago, STEM remained inside the research laboratory until its commercial viability began to be recognized about two years ago.

The effect of the development of the laser on the field of optics was the theme of an introductory lecture by E Inglestam which set the scene for the tenth congress of the International Commission for Optics held in Prague last August. The congress was accompanied by a conference on 'Recent advances in optical physics'.

The sun's equator may well be brighter than its poles: an observation either ignored or discounted by several astronomers in the past, but now used to determine the nature of solar oblateness by scientists at Arizona University's Santa Catalina Laboratory for Experimental Relativity by Astrometry (SCLERA). Dr H Hill believes that the excess equatorial brightness is time varying with a complex period of months or longer and that it has misled scientists in the past to overestimate solar oblateness (the ratio of the sun's equatorial to polar diameters).

Continuing the story of physical methods in archaeology (see Physics Bulletin March 1975) the use of the scanning electron microscope is helping to provide us with an insight into the early development of pottery. At the University of Essex's Physics Department M S Tite and Y Maniatis have been examining a sequence of pottery sherds from Iraq to determine the conditions that were used in the initial firing.

Powers of up to 10 kW tunable over much of the range 2.5–15.0 μm have been obtained by a team from Southampton University, by pumping caesium vapour with pulsed dye laser radiation. Recent results on stimulated electronic Raman scattering in alkali metal vapours were presented by Dr D Hanna's group at the second national quantum electronics conference held in Oxford in September.

A relatively new area in the application of ion beams to materials is the investigation of the phenomenon of radiation blistering which occurs when light gaseous ions, usually helium, are implanted in surfaces to high doses. This results in surface blistering and exfoliation.

The new and the old. It is unpleasant for scientists to hear in a speech results which have been known for years and have already been mentioned in 10 different lectures.

We know that a large part of the activity of The Institute of Physics is concerned with the publication of the results of research. But what proportion of Institute members are involved in publication as authors, whether within or outside the Institute?

Since the experimental demonstration of the one dimensional metallic state, the study of one dimensional conductors has flourished. Michael Rice outlines recent work in this branch of solid state physics and discusses the 'charge density wave' state

J B Birks (ed) Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp xix + 653 price £24

The editor of this volume has linked it strongly with volume one and also with an earlier book which was written by him, with a similar title. Two of the nine chapters in volume two are 'postscripts' to chapters in volume one and a third chapter is a continuation of the earlier book.

B Cagnac and J C Pebay-Peyroula London: Macmillan 1975 pp xxiv + 328 price £5·95 pp xix + 253 price £5·95

These books formed the two volumes of a French text but are issued independently in their English versions. Fundamental Principles is concerned with the experimental justification of the laws of quantum mechanics and is intended to be read without prerequisite knowledge of the formalism of quantum mechanics.

F A Huntley (ed) London and Bristol: The Institute of Physics 1975 pp xii + 600 price £19.50 (non-members, UK), £9.75 (members), £20.50 (nonmembers, overseas)

As the length of the book, and the number of conference articles (nine invited reviews and 65 contributed papers) testify, the subject is flourishing. Thus, only two years after the preceding conference in the series there is much new work to report, including new methods and concepts.

Hans Meier Weinheim: Verlag Chemie 1974 pp xv + 661 price DM 138

The subtitle of this book is more explicit about its contents than the main title. The author points out in his preface that interest in these matters first grew rapidly during the 1950s.

J C Slater Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp viii + 357 price £10.25

Professor Slater's easy flow of words and undiminished enthusiasm for physics set the style for this personal historical account from the early days of quantum physics in 1923 to the present day. The physics he has personally contributed to acts as a peg for other comments, for example why from 1933 the emphasis shifted to nuclear and high energy physics, although the development of quantum theory in the preceding decade was mostly devoted to atomic, molecular and solid state properties.

G B Whitham Chichester: J Wiley 1974 pp xvi + 636 price £12.15

Professor Whitham's book can be highly recommended as a comprehensive account of the mathematics of wave motion written with great knowledge and enthusiasm. It grew out of a course given to postgraduate mathematicians and physicists and contains material that one would expect in such a text; a discussion of characteristics and the formation of shocks; application to water waves and gas dynamics; group velocity, dispersion and wave patterns; the classical nonlinear results.

J C Willmott Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp xiv + 357 price £8.50 (cased) £4.25 (paperback)

This book is another in the Manchester Physics Series of textbooks and is intended for students in their second year of an honours physics course at an English university. The book follows the conventional historical approach to the subject beginning with the experimental evidence for atomicity and the breakdown of classical physics; an introduction to wave mechanics followed by an elementary account of angular momentum in quantal systems and applications to the hydrogen atom.

(Brief edn) PSNS Project Staff Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp xiii + 416 price £5.40 (paperback)

This book is produced for elementary school teachers, who require some background knowledge in science. From the ideas of measurement the book covers the subject matter of an O level course in a lively and interesting manner.

Christa Kirsten and Hans-Günther Körber Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1915 pp 299 price 38DM

The editors remark that these proposals are often as revealing about their authors as about the nominee; thus Planck on Einstein in 1913: 'Dass er in seinen Spekulationen gelegentlich auch einmal über das Ziel hinausgeschossen haben mag, wie z. B. in seiner Hypothese der Lichtquanten, wird man ihm nicht allzuschwer anrechnen dürfen; derm ohne einmal ein Risiko zu wagen, lässt sichauch in der exaktesten Naturwissenschaft keine wirkliche Neuerung einfuhren.'

Morris Goran Michigan, USA: Ann Arbor Science 1974 (distributed by J Wiley) pp xi + 128 price £4.50 (cased)

This is a collection of snippets about science and scientists, put together without order and lacking all references concerning their origin. About the only systematization to be found is that the length of a snippet is inversely proportional to its importance.

B T M Willis and A W Pryor London: Cambridge University Press 1975 pp xvi + 280 price £9.50

The scope and emphasis of this book are well described by the titles of its three main sections: theory of lattice dynamics, effect of temperature on Bragg intensities and thermal diffuse scattering. From the point of view of the crystallographer interested in the determination of the static structure of a crystal, the effect of atomic vibrations has always been a nuisance, usually corrected for by primitive methods.

M M Faktor and I Garrett London: Chapman and Hall 1974 pp x + 300 price £7

Crystal growth from the vapour has received much less attention than melt or solution growth even though it is far more amenable to theoretical treatment. The emphasis of this excellent book is on the microscopic processes involved in vapour growth and after a general introduction deals in detail with the vapour–crystal interface, vapour transport and other processes controlling crystal growth.

R M H Cheng and J D Parsons London: Edward Arnold 1975 pp xi + 380 price £3.95

Essentially an introductory text to switching circuits this book covers a much wider range of material than is implied in the title. In fact there is sufficient material in it for it to function as the basic text for many an undergraduate physicist's electronics course.

(Technical Report Series No 159) E J Hall and H H Rossi Vienna: IAEA 1974 pp 141 price £3

Professors Hall and Rossi have produced a highly readable and informative 'mini-text' for the express purpose of assisting educators and researchers in member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency to use ²⁵²Cf neutron sources safely and effectively. Consisting of an instructional syllabus followed by a manual of experiments, the book provides the basis for both a lecture and a laboratory course in ²⁵²Cf related studies.

E E Smith London: HMSO 1975 pp v + 114 price £5

This delightful little monograph deserves a wide readership. As an historical record, with over 200 literature citations, written by one of the scientists involved, the book is a valuable reference for specialists in radiation standards.

Medical Research Council Report London: HMSO 1975 pp v + 38 price 45p

This report has been produced by the Medical Research Council Committee on Protection against Ionizing Radiations 'in response to the Council's wish for a statement summarizing present knowledge about the potential hazards to man of the element plutonium and its compounds'. More specifically it is devoted to a reassessment of the current radiological protection standards for the a emitting radionuclide ²³⁹Pu.

Maeve O'Connor and F Peter Woodhead Amsterdam: Associated Scientific Publishers 1975 pp vii + 108 price Dfl 21, $7.95

This little guide gives forthright advice on all stages of preparing and presenting a research paper for publication. I was misled by the title and at first mildly disappointed to find that it was not primarily an exposition of the niceties and pitfalls of English language.

Zdenêk Kopal Dordrecht, Holland: D Reidel 1974 pp viii + 223 price Dfl 70, $25 (cased) Dfl 45, $16.50 (paperback)

This excellent book forms volume 7 in the series 'Geophysics and astrophysics monographs'. In the early chapters the techniques of lunar exploration, first by unmanned spacecraft launched by the United States and the USSR and later the manned Apollo programme, are discussed.

F J Kerr and S C Simonson III (eds) Dordrecht, Holland: D Reidel 1974 pp xiii + 654 price Dfl 195, $78 (cased), Dfl 150, $60 (paperback)

This admirably prompt volume combines a balanced coverage of its rapidly developing subject areas with well judged supporting contributions from other approaches, particularly from the infrared. Specialists will find the detail to relate with their own work, and will have no difficulty in coping with the variety of notations and literal identications which is characteristic of the subject.

Kenneth R Lang Berlin: Springer 1974 pp xxvii + 735 price DM 192

Dr Lang has done an impressive amount of work in assembling a comprehensive reference book of data and formulae for astrophysicists working in all branches of the subject, and he has succeeded in providing a very useful and generally up-todate volume. Most of the formulae are presented with explanations of the physical assumptions used in their derivation, and so even somebody quite new to a field may refer to and use them with confidence.

A Hasegawa Berlin: Springer-Verlag 1975 pp xi + 217 price DM 73, $31.40

This is a very useful booklet, not only for plasma physicists, but also for plasma astrophysicists. The author gives a detailed discussion of many of the instabilities which may occur in a plasma, and also considers their implications for astrophysical situations.

J Crank London: Oxford University Press 1915 pp viii + 414 price £12.50

A down-to-earth, workmanlike and easy-to-follow account of how analytic and numerical methods can solve the diffusion equation and some of its generalizations in a series of increasingly complicated situations, with very many examples clearly worked through. The book is not taylor made for physicists, since it does not rely 500 on or exploit theoretical physics' common stock-in-trade of nomenclature, concepts, and analogies, and since some topics highly important to physics are ignored altogether (for instance neutron diffusion and Monte Carlo methods).

A S Nowick and J J Burton (eds) London: Academic Press 1975 pp xii + 491 price £21.60

Only a comparatively small number of books devoted to solid state diffusion exist and most of these have appeared during the last decade or so. Their general aim has been to give a systematic treatment either of the overall field or of a selected area.

N M Queen and G Violini London: Macmillan 1975 pp xi + 202 price £12

This attempts to be a comprehensive, albeit slightly dated, survey of the application of dispersion relations to high energy physics, the applications to πN and KN scattering amplitudes being especially well discussed. The material on Regge poles however is rather mundane, being well covered elsewhere, and might usefully have been replaced by consideration of applications to ππ amplitudes, particularly the Roy equations which would then have given a greater air of topicality, and less overlap with other standard works such as Martin and Spearman.

R W B Stephens (ed) London: Chapman and Hall 1975 pp viii + 194 price £5

This book is a collection of the invited papers given at the eighth international congress on acoustics, and includes those papers not available to delegates at the time of the congress. The topics covered include the main theme of the invited lecture programme, environmental acoustics, together with sound production and propagation, building acoustics, hearing research, medical applications of ultrasound and the applications of surface waves.

H W Kroto Chichester: J Wiley 1975 pp xi + 311 price £9.75

This book is about the rotational energy levels of molecules and the interpretation of the spectra – particularly microwave spectra – which result from transitions between the levels. After succinct accounts of the quantum mechanics to be used and the Hamiltonian for a rotating molecule, the case of the rigid rotor is treated in some detail.

J Durig (ed) New York: Marcel Dekker 1975 pp ix + 417 price $37.50

There are two contributions to the book. The first discusses the vibrational spectra and structures of X₂Y₄ molecules.

D Allan Bromley (ed) Amsterdam: North Holland 1974 pp 288 price Dfl 140, $58.50

Reprinted from Nuclear Instruments and Methods122 1974, this set of 21 papers written by physicists and engineers who have played leading roles in establishing the electrostatic accelerator as a precision tool for the study of nuclear structure is a well illustrated record of the development of these machines from the early thirties to the present day and as such it is of general interest. Authors from High Voltage Engineering Corporation, National Electrostatics Corporation and from a number of nuclear structure laboratories in USA, UK, Europe, USSR, Australia and Brazil describe the more important features of design, construction and performance of modern tandem accelerators; including such aspects as: negative ion sources, beam transport systems and accelerating tube construction.

A K Oppenheim (ed) Oxford: Pergamon 1974 pp xvi + 248 price £6

The papers included in this collection were first published in Acta Astronautica 1974. In spite of the title, the number of papers actually discussing applications of aerospace technology to studies of the earth's atmosphere is very small and a number of the remainder do not even discuss the associated, and perhaps more generally interesting, topic of the possible effects of aerospace technology on the atmosphere.

Monthly round-up of new instruments, components and equipment released by industry vendors.

Information about appointments and awards, meetings, and member services from the Institute of Physics.

Late-breaking conference news, calls for papers and general news.