National Parks in Britaindoi: 10.1038/162631a0pmid: N/A
THE implications of the revolution in the British system of land tenure which occurred on July 1, 1948, when the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947, came into force, are even yet far from being generally appreciated, although the Act immediately affects millions of property owners. It represents, indeed, a great experiment in social control. Old individual liberties are put in trust for the common good; but few as yet understand the methods of community planning or the discipline which planning requires of them. Nor are the technical implications fully realized—the need for development planners of higher quality and better training, for a new tradition in which economics, sociology and geography are blended with the skill of the architect, the engineer and the surveyor into something at least approaching a science.
(1) Radar Aids to Navigation (2) Radar Beacons (3) LORAN : Long Range NavigationSMITH-ROSE, R. L.
doi: 10.1038/162633a0pmid: N/A
ALL those who have been in any way connected with the vast developments in radio and radar techniques during the past decade will be familiar with the extensive contributions made during the war years by the staff of the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Much of the basic scientific and engineering knowledge which resulted from these contributions has been collected together by an editorial staff Working under the auspices of the United States National Defense Research Committee and is now being published in a series of volumes which has become familiarly known in the radio world as the ‘five-foot shelf'. The general design and scope of this publication, and details of the introductory volume to the series, have already been described in Nature (June 5, p. 867). The present review is concerned with Vols. 2, 3 and 4 of the series, which together add another three inches to the shelf.
Population Policy in Great BritainFITZGERALD, WALTER
doi: 10.1038/162635a0pmid: N/A
ARE the British people able and willing to maintain their numbers, and is it desirable that they should? If, as anticipated, the reply is affirmative, how can we ensure that our children shall be naturally well endowed and properly equipped as members of society to face the difficult years ahead? P.E.P., in answer to these basic questions, assumes that British society will remain democratic in its devotion to individual freedom and that the principles and practice of a future population policy—unfortunately, not yet even dimly discernible !—will be in harmony with our traditions.
Drugs from PlantsJAMES, W. O.
doi: 10.1038/162636a0pmid: N/A
THE popular appetite for information about the healing virtues of plants has been abundantly catered for by books written from the angle of herbalism. It is a long and honourable tradition, and few incidents in the history of science can be better known to the layman than the original stimulus that came to the study of plants from the appreciation, however imperfect, of their value to medicine. Unfortunately, the outlook of these modern nearherbals remains medieval, and little popular attention has been directed to the large number of important vegetable drugs in the modern pharmacopoeias and to the fact that their number, as witness curare and penicillin, is still increasing. There is undoubtedly room for a book that will do something towards making clear to the layman the distinction between herbs and plant drugs.
Buna RubberLONG, C. W.
doi: 10.1038/162637a0pmid: N/A
THE author of this excellent book was, until his retirement in 1945, vice-president of the Standard Oil Co. (N.J.), of which he was principal executive for more than twenty-five years, directing and organising research, technical development and other related activities. He is probably the only man who is in a position to tell the story of the birth and development of the synthetic rubber industry in the United States, and he does so with a detachment which makes one almost forget that he was in the centre of the stage during the whole of the time and that, but for his faith and persistence, synthetic rubber might not have been produced in the United States in time to prevent a calamity.
Industrial Applications of InfraredGAVIN, M. R.
doi: 10.1038/162637b0pmid: N/A
IN 1938 publicity was first given to the use of radiant heat from electric lamps for the acceleration of paint drying. Since then the technique has been developed and extended, and now radiant heating is being used in many different industrial processes. Other sources of heat have been introduced. The present book, written by a lamp engineer, is concerned primarily with the use of electric lamps ; and it describes in some detail the properties and design of lamps, reflectors, conveyors and other associated equipment for a very wide range of applications. A most notable feature is the inclusion of more than a hundred illustrations of working installations.
Swelling and Shrinkingdoi: 10.1038/162638b0pmid: N/A
THIS publication brings together the series of thirty-four papers read at the Royal Institution meeting in 1946, together with summaries of the discussion which took place and some subsequent communications. An account of the discussion appeared in Nature shortly after the meeting (158, 571 ; 1946), and need not be duplicated here. It is only necessary to commend this volume as a most useful reference book for all who are interested in any aspect of the physical interaction of polymers with liquids. The field covered is extremely wide, ranging from aqueous systems possessing a well-defined structure which can be studied by X-ray methods to nonpolar systems in which the components show a close approximation to random mixing.
A Picture Book of the Whole Coast of England and WalesS., L. D.
doi: 10.1038/162638d0pmid: N/A
THE first Minister of Town and Country Planning commissioned Mr. J. A. Steers to carry out a personal survey of the whole coast-line of England and Wales and to present an assessment of its varied scenery which might serve as a guide should legislation to conserve the coast from further spoliation be regarded as necessary. The results of the survey were published as a large volume, "The Coastline of England and Wales", issued by the Cambridge University Press. In order to make the unique collection of 115 photographs available to a wider public, the publishers have reproduced them, together with thirty-one others and two colour-photographs, in this attractive picture book. A map shows the position of each picture, and there are brief notes on each ; while in fifteen informative pages the author has dealt with the chief types of coast and the origin of each. The photographs are remarkable in that they avoid hackneyed subjects and often present Wellknown views from an unusual angle. The Royal Geographical Society has permitted the reproduction of the map assessing coastal scenery, and Dr. Fraser Darling contributes an introductory essay. The result is a book which can scarcely fail to whet the reader‘s appetite for a taste of the larger volume.
The Journal of the Institute of Metalsdoi: 10.1038/162638a0pmid: N/A
VOLUME 72 of the Journal of the Institute of Metals contains 721 pages of text together with an index occupying another ten pages, and fully maintains the high standard expected from this publication. Practically every aspect of non-ferrous metallurgy coming within the scope of the Institute is represented in the twenty-six papers, together with the discussions and correspondence upon them. To the metallurgist, the engineer, and the physicist concerned with the fundamentals of the metallic state alike, there is a direct appeal. The presidential address of Col. P. G. J. Gueterbock is of more than normal interest to those concerned with the health of the metallurgical industry as a whole, and the thirty-sixth May Lecture by Prof. N. F. Mott illuminates the relationship between atomic physics and the strength of metals. Of the remaining papers, the effects of residual stresses are considered in relationship to the fatigue of aluminium alloys ; and Lunt and MacLellan give a detailed mathematical treatment of the wire-drawing process. H. W. L. Phillips deals at length with the alloys of aluminium containing magnesium, silicon and iron, and has an interesting account of the application of some thermodynamic principles to the liquidus surfaces of these materials. Corrosion problems, which have always interested the Institute, are dealt with in four papers, of which one may perhaps particularly mention that of Dr. Cuthbertson on the resistance to sea-water ocorrosion of some α-tin bronzes. The structure of ingots and castings is the theme of three papers ; ageing effects of three more, and fatigue problems crop up repeatedly. There will, in fact, be few concerned with non-ferrous metallurgy to whom some of the contributions are not of direct appeal.
Visages de la mathématiquePIAGGIO, H. T. H.
doi: 10.1038/162638c0pmid: N/A
MATHEMATICAL research has two aspects. The more obvious is the solution of problems which arise in the branches of the subject already known. But there is also the logical and philosophical study of the foundations of mathematics, and of the relation between its different branches. Strangely enough, it is the second aspect as Well as the first which is indispensable for a full understanding oi modern physical theories, such as relativity and quantum mechanics. Dr. Defrise believes that a real understanding of science is impossible without at least a general idea of this second aspect. He has therefore tried to give a treatment of non-Euclidean geometry, the ‘axiomatic method', the theory of groups, invariance and transformations, in a form requiring no knowledge of mathematics beyond the ordinary school course and suitable for the nonspecialist reader. But this reader must possess a logical mind and a capacity for abstract thought which are not characteristic of ‘the man in the street' in Great Britain, whatever is the case in Belgium and France. However, the reading of this little book would be very profitable, if not always very easy, to teachers of elementary mathematics in Britain, as Dr. Defrise‘s emphasis is on that aspect of geometry which is entirely omitted from our ordinary school course.