EXPLAINING THE ATOM

This was reported in the February 15th, 1947 bulletin as follows: ""*There are a number of popularizations on this subject on the market, but his is one of the very best. The author, a professor of biophysics at Columbia, achieves just the right degree of simplification to be clear and interesting without the sacrifice of essential material. No attempt is made to cajole the reader into believing that here is the whole story of the atom, but enough of the basic ideas are presented to round out a pretty clear picture, even for the young adult with next to no scientific background. This book does as good a job in its field as the Einstein-Infeld The Evolution of Physics did for the quantum theory and relativity. Professor Hecht must be a topnotch teacher, if one can judge from the clear, logical progression of theory and experimental evidence that he derives from a complex subject."" In the seven years that have passed, Hecht has died, atomic science has seen rapid developments and Professor Rabinowitch has revised and brought the material here up to recent findings in thermonuclear fields, the post ""A-bomb"", the discussion of control of a atomic energy and the experiments in the use of that energy in areas other than destruction, with additional material of his own. Eight paintings of the original edition (around 25,000 copies) would seem proof that this new edition will find its audience.