Das ultrarote Spektrum

Abstract

THE remark has not infrequently been made that progress in scientific knowledge depends ultimately upon the discovery of new methods of technique and the perfection of older ones. However much one may wish to uphold the claims of pure theory, there remains the conviction that, broadly speaking, it is the experimentalists who set the pace, either in providing trustworthy data or, for various reasons, failing to do so. In few branches of physics has this been more obvious than in research upon infra-red radiation and its reactions with matter. As the authors of the book now under review remind us, it was Herschel who discovered the existence of these radiations so long ago as 1800; yet other parts of the spectrum—X-rays, for example—came to light decades later and grew in importance far more rapidly. The reason is to be sought in the exceedingly difficult nature of experimentation in the infra-red. It is not too much to say that the conquests of the last few years have reduced many of the technical rebels to a satisfactory degree of subordination: a few, however, still offer stout resistance, and against them a war of attrition is probably the only course.

Das ultrarote Spektrum.

Prof. Dr. Clemens Schaefer Dr. Frank Matossi. (Struktur der Materie in Einzeldarstellungen, herausgegeben von M. Born und J. Franck, Band 10.) Pp. vi + 400. (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1930.) 28 gold marks.