Physics of the Twentieth Century

I " , I, ! ", I I. I \ , 220 THE- UNIVERSITY OF TORONTQ QUART~RLY .op'eration, Mr. Rider is abundantly aware. Who is ,to un4ertake tomake the,m icro-prin ted caralogue cards? Is it to be a e'en tral cirgan jzation) like the Library of-Congress,' or are the 'cards to be made by libraries which have undertaken to specialize in 'given fields? How soon will Readex I ' , " , ' 'machines be so cheap that every research student will be able to afford to bU:yone? Will human nature rebel at the prospect of having to read ~'icro- , print rather than the 'fair printed ,page? Mr. Rider discusses all these .questionsj' and his answers are at any rate cai1did. But 'behind all these di,scusslons is the paramoun t question! What alternative solution is th.ere to the problem of the geometrical progression in the growth of research libraries? , "Finally) Mr. Rider urges that no time should be lost in putting his ,proposals Into effect. Let his reasons be set forth in his own words:' By sheer co'incidence,'j t happens that, at this very moment, another problem is pressing upon the scholarly ;lnd Ii brary worlds (or cot'lective) constructive action, for whith micro- 'c'ards'would seem to offer almost the ideal,solution. All over the world-but particularly . in Europe-great research libra~es have been destroyed. by enemy acti~'n. Many more ar~ going to be destroyed berore the war is over. And n~t only libraries, but booksellers' 'and publishers' stocks o( books) miHions' o( books. . . . ' 'This devastated-library problem has already received wide and thoughtful study. It· has ,been pr~posed to repr;n t by photo-lithography, or to micioftlm, or to photostat-each of the: se three me thods has been sugges'ted-certain of these ess~n ti al research rna ttri als, ~nd} having done this (either with governm~nt funds, or foundation funds, or both), to di9tribute sets of thc:m [0 8 hundred or more o(thc: destroyed libraries ~f Europe: and Asia.' "May it be suggested ~ere that, In9tead of using anyone of (he three above.men[i~ned processes, these research materials be micro-carded. Even if we had only the first cost; t'h~ manufacturing cost, to conside~, micro-cards would still seem to be the nrH choice, 's.imply' because micro-card capies are by far the cheapest to rnake .... In other words, to put it bluntly': the very war situation we are io offers us a unique opportunity 10 iniJiate the micro-card era-if only we ,ilo'at quickly to take advo."t~ge,'c;t" it. 'But we shall have to'move quickly: alternative steps in other directions 'are alrea,dy under way, steps greatly m[)re costly, and greatly lns useful, to the libraries we: are seeking to serve. Could the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations find any 'better use for their money than m exploring and exploiting the' possibilities latent in" Mt. Rider's idea?' , PHYS]CS OF THE TWENTIETH CE~TURY* FRANK ALLEN' , This is a smalL 'book on a' big subject, for inJ scarcely more th~n a genera- , tion the infant ,Modern Physics, has grown into' the Colossu,s of Science. The task of the translator has been excellently done, for the difficult suhject-, , matter is presented with the clarity and precision which doubtless were characteristic of the original work. While ,there are it'o mathematical formulae to bothe,r the general reader,there are,' it is to be regretted, no illustrations to guide his imagination. No index is provided, so that, it :is difficult to relocate some interesting point which a first reading disclosed.- , I • ~ "Physics [)f Jhe 20th Century. By PASCUAL JORDAN. :. Translated by Eleilnor Oshrr., New York: Philosophical Library. '1944. Pp. ~ii, }li5. ($4.00) ~ \. I' I i, , ", , I " I 1-", I " .. REVIEWS " 221 - -' ' .very few misprints or errors have been noticed; but attention may ~e ,directed to,the""misspelling of Huygens as ""Huyghens" (pp. 24, 33)} and of Hahn as "HaImH '(p. 177); to the hal (-life of radium as"" 1>580» years , . instead of 1,850.years (p. 107); to "million"[or billion...