V&ational Spectroscopy, 4 (1993) 261-262
Ekevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam
BOOK REVIEWS
J. Michael Hollas, Moa!em Spectroscopy, 2nd edn.,
Wiley, Chichester, 1992 (ISBN o-471-93077-6,
Price f14.50/US$32.95; ISBN o-471-93076-8
(cloth), Price .E39.5O/US$88.95). 432 pp.
MO&m Spectroscopy has been written as an
up-to-date text intended for use in upper level
undergraduate and graduate courses in chemistry
or physics. It follows the organization of Hollas’
High Resolution Spectroscopy, and was written to
make the subject matter of the latter book acces-
sible to a student audience. In this second edi-
tion, published only five years after the appear-
ance of the first edition, Hollas has added mate-
rial on newly developed areas or subjects that
became more important to the curriculum in the
intervening time. This material includes concepts,
such as an expanded development of the use of
Fourier transform in spectroscopy, techniques,
such as supersonic jet spectroscopy and x-ray
fluorescence spectroscopy, and instrumentation,
such as the titanium-sapphire laser.
I appreciate the way in which the student is
often challenged to look further into some as-
pects. For example, on p. 61, in a discussion of
the reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy of
CO adsorbed on a copper surface, it is mentioned
that one may use the spectrum to distinguish the
orientation of the adsorbate. A student motivated
to search out the reason for this behaviour would
learn a bit more about the physics and chemistry
of this system. Shortly later (p. 74) the difference
in the odor of the (+) and (-1 enantiomers of
carvone is mentioned -again an idea that could
provoke further study.
This brings me to one of the deficiencies of the
book. A good text is often used also as a basic
reference to the subject matter. However, in the
present case, material presumably taken from
original research publications is often presented
without attribution. Yet in other instances, refer-
0924-2031/93/$06.00 0 1993 - Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. All rights reserved
261
ences are included in captions or given as foot-
notes, usually to publications not involving Dr.
Hollas. One may speculate that the author chose
not to reference his own work for modesty’s sake,
but this is not a help to the reader who is seeking
more information on the subject. Another area
where references could be helpful is for concepts
or devices associated with individual’s names:
Grotrian diagram, Deslandres table, Walsh dia-
gram, Koopmans’ theorem, Brewster’s angle.
A further reason to wish for references is that
there are many numerical/ typographical errors
in the book, so much so that a reader wishing to
make use of a given fact would want to check it
with the original reference. For example, the
‘fundamental vibrational wavenumbers for CO,‘,
given on p. 338, are the harmonic wavenumbers;
the former term usually refers to the band ori-
gins. A more surprising case is that the value
given on p. 283 for the harmonic wavenumber of
the ground state of H,, 3115 cm-‘, is actually
that of the D, isotopic species. This error is
reproduced from the first edition, and has in fact
been carried over from High Resolution Spec-
troscopy!
In the discussion of the hyper Raman spec-
trum of ethane (pp. 346-3471, Fig. 9.19 includes a
band labeled ‘vg + vs’ and another labeled ‘vz +
V,‘, a notation that is usually used to indicate
combination bands. However, here these labels
are used to indicate that these bands are due to
contributions from two fundamental transitions.
Moreover, the mode numbering does not follow
the accepted convention, presented on p. 87. It
turns out that the conventional mode numbering
is in fact used in the original article, and the
original figure does not include the labels, which
have been added to the figure shown here. (Also,
the name of the first author is misspelled in the
figure caption -again reproduced from the first
edition.)