A Treatise on Physical Chemistry II. [antikvár]

PREFACE Some ten years ago, the publishers of this Treatise decided that the status of physical chemistry demanded an expansion of scope beyond the two volumes of preceding editions. A more ambitious enterprise involving the production of five volumes on the subject was planned. The cooperative feature of the effort was to be maintained. The subject was to be presented in a sequence of volumes, the first to contain an exposition of the fundamentais of Atomistics and Thermodynamics. This first volume was completed when war reached America and was published in March 1942. It was planned, prior to that time, to follow up the first volume "at intervals of several months by four volumes which should present in succession the States of Matter, Chemical Equilibrium, Chemical Kinetics and, finally, all those diverse elements that could be grouped under the title of Molecular Structure. The scope of the work was to.be so broad that the student in a special field could garner from its pages that which was known as he set forth in his quest for the unknown." That program and that Schedule were casualties of World War II. Editorial activity and the collaboration of competent authors were lacking while the stresses of the war effort and of the post-war reconstruction years were with us. Indeed, authors who had been confidently relied upon to furnish the expanded effort were drawn away from fields of former interest to other more compelling activities. There have consequently been protracted delays in the construction of the work and an unevenness in the times of delivery of the finished chapters which has deprived some of the authors of rapid returns from their faithful labors. The renewed stresses of these last years have still further delayed the publication of this second volume which reviews our knowledge of the states of matter. Now it has become possible to present this material to include not only the kinetic theory of gases, the properties of both ideal and imperfect gaseous systems, the liquid state, and the solid state of aggregation as as-certained by X-ray analysis, but also the properties of matter in the colloidal state. Over the years there have been anxious enquiries concerning and requests for the renewal of the effort. The editors and the publishers join in the hope that, with the publication of the present volume, the task of presenting the science of physical chemistry can now go forward less interruptedly so that the student of the science may once more possess "the accumulated experience of his predecessors" to enable him the better "to go forward to the new fields as yet unexplored." To all who have assisted in this undertaking the editor takes this opportunity to express his gratitude and indebtedness. Hugh S. Taylor Princeton, N. J. September, 1951