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Basic Atomic and Molecular Spectroscopy. J. Michael Hollas. New York: Wiley Interscience, 2002, 192 pp., $34.95, softcover. ISBN 0-471-28162-X.

Department of Chemistry, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115

As the title suggests, this book is a basic overview of atomic and molecular spectroscopy. The Preface states that spectroscopy and quantum mechanics are intimately related. This can be supported by simply glancing at the Table of Contents: approximately one-half of the chapters are about quantum mechanics; only about one-half of the chapters discuss spectroscopy directly.

The book is generally well written and should be accessible to those who have not had either quantum mechanics or spectroscopy in a pre-vious course. Both quantum mechanics and spectroscopy can be heavily mathematical, but the book (thankfully, in the minds of some) avoids heavy derivations and other mathematical manipulations and focuses strongly on the results and their application to spectroscopy. The initial introduction of quantum mechanics and the Schrödinger equation, the central equation of quantum mechanics, is deceptively simplified—the purist in me objects, but the realist in me recognizes (and ultimately agrees with) the need to get over the details of quantum mechanics and focus on its conclusions relating to spectroscopy.

The book covers the fundamentals of electronic, vibrational, and rotational spectroscopy, with some mention of the Raman technique. Not covered are more elaborate forms of spectroscopy such as photoelectron or Mössbauer spectroscopy, which is appropriate for a book of this level. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there is no mention of resonance spectroscopies such as electron spin resonance (ESR) or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Not only are these important and useful techniques that should be included in a tutorial book like this, but the physics behind magnetic spectroscopies are so different from "normal" absorption and emission spectroscopies that their discussion widens a student’s perspective. Perhaps the author can consider adding this material in a next edition.

The ordering of chapters may be confusing at first. First are several chapters on the quantum mechanical treatments of electronic, vibrational, and rotational behavior, which are followed by a short chapter on how spectra are measured. Next are several chapters on electronic, vibrational, and rotational spectroscopy. It might have made more sense to juxtapose the chapters on electronic behavior and electronic spectroscopy, the chapters on vibrations and vibrational spectroscopy, and so forth.

Finally, the book has several example questions posed and answered throughout the chapters, as well as a few exercises to work out at the end of each chapter. These problems are a nice touch for this sort of book, but I would have liked to see more emphasis on how the units work out in the numerical problems. Students need to realize that in physical science, units are just as important as, if not more than, numbers. Especially when you consider how convoluted some of our derived units are, seeing a more explicit treatment of how the units interact in mathematical manipulations would be welcome.

This Article Extract Full Text (PDF) Submit an electronic Letter to the Editor about this paper Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ball, D. W. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Ball, D. W.