Experimental Nuclear Physics
Description:... At the end of World War II many physicists who had been mobilized for the war effort returned to university work and to pure research; a great number of them had worked on nuclear problems and were anxious to resume investigations in this field. Moreover there was a large influx of students eager to start nuclear investigations. The need was keenly felt for a book which would bring the experimentalist up to date in experimental techniques, point out to him the significant facts and data, and indicate the broad lines of theoretical interpretation. It was immediately apparent that the field of nuclear physics had grown so much and the various branches had become so specialized that no one person could hope to write a book like the famous treatises of Rutherford (which, however, because of the evolution mentioned above, had by 1930 already become Rutherford, Chadwick, and Ellis), Curie, and Kohlrausch. A cooperative effort like the Geiger-Scheel Handbuch der Physik seemed the only solution. Individual authors could undertake to prepare reasonably complete treatises on a restricted field in which they are quite authoritative. By keeping the discussions relatively short, it became possible for a group of authors to cooperate without curtailing their research activity. An incentive for several of the indeed, was the desire to read the contributions of the others.
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