Nature: Sot - Iet Union Year-Book, 1930. Compiled and

922 NATURE (JUNE 20, 1931
nometry ". The strict chronological order followed

for the most part in Cantor's work constituted a
Our Bookshelf.
great difficulty in the way of the reader who wished Sot•iet Union Year-Book, 1930. Compiled and
to inform himself on any particular point at short edited by A. A. Santalov and Dr. Louis Segal.
Pp. viii + 670. (London : George Allen and
notice, since the information had to be laboriously Unwin, Ltd., 1930.) 7s. 6d. net.
gathered together out of a number of different THE " Soviet Union Year-Book ", which first
chapters in the book, with the help of the index. appeared in 1925 as the "Commercial Year-Book
For a reference book, therefore, which should of the Soviet Union ", is a bulky and informative
enable a student to get light on this or that point volume, concerned chiefly, as its origin would sug-
without loss of time, a systematic arrangement gest, with matters of commercial interest. There
are sections on the constitutional and political
according to subjects is infinitely preferable, and organisation of the Union of Socialist Soviet
Tropfke's book is written from this point of Republics and of its constituent republics ; on the
view. economic organisation and development of the
The seven parts of the second edition divide the Union, including a short notice of the Five-Year
Plan; and separate sections dealing with agri-
subjects thus: (1) Calculation (numeral systems, culture, mineral resources, industry, transport,
whole numbers and fractions, arithmetical opera- foreign trade, finance and currency, labour, and
tions, etc.) ; (2) general arithmetic (including co-operation. There is also a legal section, dealing
algebra, logarithms, theory of numbers) ; (3) pro- only with private law.
portions and equations ; (4) plane geometry ; Of most interest to readers of NATURE are prob-
ably the sections dealing with education and with
(5) plane trigonometry, sphreric and spherical health. Under the former heading we read that
trigonometry; (6) analysis and analytical geo- there were in 1928-29, in the U.S.S.R., 109 Workers'
metry; (7) stereometry, with indices to the whole Faculties with 60,200 students, and 134 univer-
work arranged (a) according to names and works, sities with 155,300 students. One would be grateful
(b) according to subjects. if subsequent issues of the "Year-Book" gave more
information concerning these institutions ; there
As the editor explains, there is no pretension to is nothing here concerning their organisation, their
literary style; the account is summary, approxi- method of recruiting students, their geographical
mating to the brevity of a lexicon; the object is, distribution, or the subjects studied in them. In
above all things, to catch the eye and make the the same section are included the numerous
salient points stand out, as it were. References are scientific institutes that have been opened in the
U.S.S.R. and where research is being done in
given in the notes to the original authorities for problems of applied science likely to assist the in-
the statements made ; the fullness of these notes dustrial development of the country. A list of
will be gathered from the fact that there are these institutes is given and, as a sample of their
1343 notes, of various lengths, to 218 pages of activities, a summary of the work carried out in
the Chemical Institute. Since the summary only
text in the volume before us. They are brought occupies a page and a half, our curiosity is aroused
up to dates so late as 1929 and 1930 : there rather than satisfied.
are references to light-years as units of distance; The legal section includes an account of the
to Eddington's calculation of the diameter of the Soviet Union laws on copyright, trade-marks,
universe, regarded as finite under the relativity industrial designs, and patents, including the full
text of the most important decrees and ordinances
theory ; to the latest researches into Babylonian in the matter of patents.
and Egyptian mathematics by H. Wieleitner, 0. Other interesting features are maps, showing the
Neugebauer, T. Eric Peet, A. B. Chace, Kurt Vogel, new political and administrative divisions of the
and others ; to B. Datta's papers on ancient Indian Union and the progress of electrification ; a list
of the more important periodicals published in
mathematics, and so on. the Union, including several technical and scien-
There are and must be omissions. We have not tific ones ; and a " Who's Who " of scientific
so far traced any reference to the ' Russian peasant ' workers. The value of the " Year-Book " as a
method of multiplication (by means of duplicating work of reference is increased by the presence of
and halving only), which in effect comes to the same an index.
thing as the ancient Egyptian method. In citing The Universe around Us. By Sir James Jeans.
other works, the author does not always refer to Second edition. Pp. x + 363 + 24 plates. (Cam-
the latest editions. But, taken as a whole, the work bridge : At the University Press, 1930.) 12s. 6d.
net.
is an invaluable, nay, indispensable, Nachschlage- CoMMENT on this well-known book is almost a work
buch ; and we look forward with lively interest to of supererogation ; the remarkable popularity it
the appearance of the remaining parts. has attained, which shows no sign of abating, makes
T. L. H. praise superfluous and adverse criticism futile.
No. 3216, VoL. 127]
© 1931 Nature Publishing Group

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922 NATURE (JUNE 20, 1931

nometry ". The strict chronological order followed

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