September 8, 1962: Nature

Ne.
4845 September 8, 1962 NATURE 931
itself from 405 to 625 lines involves problems enough, try to justify the unhappy events of a century ago,
and although the White Paper gives no details it for they are over and done with: so much so, in fact,
seems that the Government's policy is reasonable. that no reputable scholar is likely to make the
The creation of a national network of U.H.F. stations mistake of asserting that theoretical physics can be
used as a prop for religion. (Symbolic logic may
is a major undertaking and while existing V.H.F. sites possibly capture ethics and oosthetics, but that is
and masts will be used to the fullest possible extent, something quite different.)
many new U.H.F. stations must be built. Further, All this, however, is not to deny a place for a further
as is pointed out in the BBC Record for June, much plane of discourse whereon epistemic conditions are
more care has to be taken in locating the receiving "wholly other", and to which its own metaphysics
aerial, which by and large will itself be more costly. may apply. They should indeed b~ humb~e and
In most locations it will be necessary, first, to have an searching. As regards the Metaphysical Society of
outside aerial and secondly to have an aerial of high- 1869, the author has presumably read the penetrating
record by his fellow-countryman, Prof. A. w_. Brown
gain costing appreciably more than the indoor and
(1947), of this phase of thought, remembermg that
outdoor aerials which are often adequate for Bands I the original title was "Theological" and not "Meta-
and III. The method by which the change-over is best physical". The whole purpose of the change was to
affected is a technical problem which has still to be make for obvious impartiality.
examined fully, and if the adoption by the Govern- The association of metaphysics with some kind
ment of the Pilkington Committee's recommendation of transcendentalism is largely a matter of language,
in this field has made this a matter of some urgency it and one can sympathize with the writer in his desire
is as well that the user should appreciate that the cost to reduce the number of assumptions supporting an
of technical advance is not something which should be objective ontology.
The interplay of belief and reason goes on. The
borne entirely by the State. It is right and salutary W oat has inherited the Augustinian "Credo ut intelli-
that some of the charge should fall on those who gam", and passed it on through Anselm and Duns
immediately benefit by it, and that in itself should Scotus. Without rejecting it, there is an honoured
help to keep the further discussion of the organization place awaiting the empirical metaphysic;; for which
of television and sound broadcasting on sensible and this volume so clearly strives. F. I. G. RAWLINS
realistic lines attuned to technical and social needs
rather than political prejudices.
THE M.K.S. SYSTEM AND
METAPHYSICS FOR EMPIRICISTS ELECTRICAL THEORY
Foundations of Empiricism
Electrical Theory on the Giorgi System
By P. Cornelius. Translated from the third Dutch
By James K. Fiebleman. Pp. xi+ 389. (The edition by Dr. L. J. Jolley. Pp. x+ 187. (London:
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962.) 27 guilders. Cleaver-Hume Press, Ltd., 1961.) 32a. net.
T HIS book is very ably written. The author has

a long list of philosophical works to his credit,
dealing with almost every aspect of the theory of
P UBLICATIONS emanating from the Philips
Research Laboratories have a high reputation,
and this English translation of a book which has
knowledge, including the social sciences. There a.re reached a third edition on the Continent will be read
seven parts: categorematics, axiomatics, systemics, with great interest throughout Great Britain.
ethics, practices, histories and epistemics. Such a The battle for the M.K.S. system advocated by
formal framework keeps the argument neat and tidy. Giorgi is almost won. There can be few electrical
The aim throughout is to regenerate metaphysics in a engineers remaining who are not convinced of its
way calculated to make the subject amenable to merits and the objections of physicists to this system
empiricism. In other words, the metaphysician do not appear to be insuperable. Advocacy of the
should be constrained within the boundaries of logic M.K.s. system is, however, only a minor purpose of
and fact. It is true that there have been several the author, whose main objective appears to be the
varieties of this discipline in the past, on the whole expounding of electrical theory up to quite advanced
unsuitable, or at least unhelpful, for an age of ad- levels with a minimum use of mathematics.
vancing scientific enterprise. A writer ofThomist sym- His starting point is Ohm's law, and one suspects
pathies, Fr. F. C. Copleston, has remarked that meta- that he would have preferred both the volt and the
physics must come to terms with empiricism. The ampere to be regarded as fundamental units, dis-
changeless view of being, as we should say, "inde- pensing with one of the mechanical units. From this
pendent of a mechanism", is too uncritical, and it is familiar law he develops the ideas of electric field
no wonder that scientists have found it unacceptable. strength and current density as vectors, J?assing
By a deliberate search for a finite metaphysics we easily from there to the concepts of electric and
are invited to overcome this defect. magnetic flux. In the space of 45 pages electrical
So far so good. Perhaps subject and object have theory is developed up to Maxwell's laws and
become out of step in the course of time, with the divergence and curl are introduced so naturally that
former predominant. It is maintained that sub- the least mathematical of his readers should have no
jectivism, Greek as it was, represented at least a difficulty in following his argument.
partial decline from the summit of Hellenic philos- Mechanical forces are not introduced until the
ophy. There is no reasonable doubt that such is a second chapter, but this inversion of the normal
true reading of history. What is odd, is that the order of developing electrical theory is not without
author should belabour the theologians for their its difficulties. In establishing Ohm's law tho author
handling of these matters. Nobody to-day would use,s mechanical forces to detect and measure both
© 1962 Nature Publishing Group

932 NATURE September 8, 1962 VOL. 195
voltage and current. The power consUined in a been included in Angstrom units for the shorter
resistance is stated as an axiom, since the real nature wave-length range and in five Angstrom units for
and dimensions of voltage and current are not the higher ranges, it would have been a consider-
revealed until much later. The book is indeed more able advantage. The inclusion of a range using glass
valuable for the technologist wishing to tie up loose optics is to be commended for those who have instru-
ends of his electrical knowledge than it would be for ments with this additional equipment; hitherto
the young student aiming to grasp the fundamentals workers in this medium have been rather ignored
of his subject. For him, Coulomb's law of forces when aids of this type have been offered.
between electric charges remains the natural starting On general grounds, the spectra suffer from the
point of his subject. The best method of introducing inherent 'graininess' of the photographic emulsion, a
the concept of the magnetic field is perhaps more defect that could scarcely be entirely avoided. The
controversial; but it is doubtful if many teachers of wisdom of glossy photographs on thin card for use in
electrical engineering will be prepared to relegate a laboratory is questionable; though users can over-
mechanical forces to the secondary position which come the flimsiness by mounting each card on a
they occupy in this book. thicker backing, a matt finish would probably have
About half the book is devoted to an exposition of been more serviceable.
selected problems. The author's self-denying ordin- The price of £26 may seem high, but this is probably
ance with regard to the use of mathematics prevents justified when one considers the man-hours necessary
the study of these problems to any great depth, to make a similar series of charts, even if it be con-
but the reader's interest is maintained through- fined to the range more commonly used in any
out. particular laboratory. The ready comparison of the
Electrical engineers in Britain should be grateful charts in this Atlas with spectrograms prepared with
to Dr. Jolley for the most attractive translation of Hilger equipment should make it worthy of a place
this work and to the Cleaver-Hume Press for the in the spectrographic laboratories where such equip-
publication of it. No misprints were found, the ment is to be found, and by no means out of place
contrast of print and paper are excellent and the where other equipment is in use.
diagrams clear. A. H. M. ARNOLD J. A. C. McCLELLAND
AN ATLAS FOR SPECTROCHEMICAL -n-ELECTRON CHEMISTRY

ANALYSIS Molecular Orbital Theory for Organic Chemists
By Prof. Andrew Streitwieser, Jr. Pp. xvi+489.
Atlas of Analysis Lines (New York and London: John Wiley and Sons,
Prepared by Halina Jaffe, with the technical assist- Inc., 1961.) 109s.
T
ance ofN. Turkeltaub. Pp. 13+50 plates. (London: HIS is a book for which there has long been
Hilger and Watts, Ltd., 1962.) £26 5s. a need. For although the greatest successes
T HE publication by Halina Jaffe presents the

enlarged iron spectrum in three ranges, 24 78 A.-
3499 A., 3324 A.-8943 A. and 3981 A.-5350 A., the
of the theoretical chemists since the advent of the
wave equation in 1926 have been in the field of organic
chemistry, there has hitherto been no simple account
last range being taken with glass optics. The spectra of the whole topic.
are presented on 50 cards, the iron arc spectrum Prof. Streitwieser is well qualified to write such
being in the centre, the persistent lines of 69 elements an account; for he combines both the experience of
having been added manually on either side of it. the experimental chemist, who knows how hard it
In assessing the value of this Atlas, comparison is to sort out a genuine measure of the charge around
will naturally be made with its well-known predeces- each atom of a molecule, and also the ability of the
sor by Gatterer and Junkes, and also with others that theoretical chemist, since he has made some notable
have appeared from time to time in text-books on contributions to our store of calculated quantities.
the subject, of which that by Brode (Ohemwal It is this balance between theory and experiment
Spectroscopy) is probably the most widely used. which must count as one of the strongest points in
Jaffe's Atlas has advantages over either of these favour of this book. The literature abounds in
but at the same time is not devoid of its own limita- 'bastard mathematics'-by which I mean poor-
tions. quality mathematics which serves practically no
The charts are of handy size and are particularly purpose because it solves no problems. There is
suitable for use with Hilger instruments. The author none of that here.
emphasizes this, and specifies type and number of The author has concentrated on n--electron chemis-
spectrograph and projector used in the production of try-which seems for him to be almost synonymous
the charts; using other projectors by the same maker, with organic chemistry-and he deals only with the
however, they are somewhat less convenient. The molecular-orbital approximation. This is wise,
arc lines appear as black lines on a white ground as because by far the greatest successes and the widest
in a normal spectrogram, at a degree of enlargement applications are within this approximation. He
well chosen for the purpose. Two tables are included also concentrates almost entirely on the simplest
which list the most persistent lines of the 69 elements Hiickel theory, with no overlap integrals and no
which have been included in the charts, in order of allowance for electron exchange (except in the
element and in order of wave-length, respectively. development of the oo-technique, largely developed
These are not intended to be comprehensive wave- by the author himself). As a result, the account is
length tables; in fact only two lines are included for excellent for ground states, but becomes much less
copper and silver, for example, up to eleven for convincing in those few places where excited states
dysprosium. A wave-length scale is lacking, which are involved. But it is quite amazing to see what
seems a rather serious omission; if one could have can be done, even with so gross an approximation.
© 1962 Nature Publishing Group

September 8, 1962: Nature

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Ne.

4845 September 8, 1962 NATURE 931

T HIS book is very ably written. The author has

© 1962 Nature Publishing Group

AN ATLAS FOR SPECTROCHEMICAL -n-ELECTRON CHEMISTRY

T HE publication by Halina Jaffe presents the

© 1962 Nature Publishing Group

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