Lasers, Molecules, and Methods, Volume 73

Advances in Chemical Physics #73

by Joseph O. Hirschfelder (Editor), Ilya Prigogine (Series Editor), Stuart A. Rice (Series Editor)

Based on a symposium on lasers, molecules, and methods held at the Los Alamos Center for Nonlinear Studies held in July 1986. Contributors present recent advances in theoretical and experimental research on a diversity of dynamical and optical phenomena resulting from the interactions of laser beams with molecules. They describe the predictive results of sophisticated mathematical models, the equipment involved in experiments, and reveal new insights into molecular structure and behavior.

1022 pages, Hardcover

First published January 17, 1989

About the author

Joseph Oakland Hirschfelder participated in the Manhattan Project; professor emeritus of chemistry, University of Wisconsin

Reviews

[Brett Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is where the meat is.

If you hunger for the taste of illuminated molecules, this book is for you. Especially if you’re looking for mathematical models to build your own code and simulations, this text has so many courses to serve, you’ll never go hungry. With this you can build the poor man’s lab - math models in your computer, fed input data from published sources, and checked for agreement - the foundation for your next big invention.

After Joseph Hirschfelder’s enthusiastic intro (1911-1990, a lead physicist on the Manhattan project), the next 220 pages fall under the heading of Mathematical Methods. But the rest of the book is no different in mathematical elaboration, with exception of a chapter on squeezed light, newly discovered at the time (1989). Yes, science marches on with refinements and extensions to models provided, but you can find that online through journal articles by the same and other authors. What’s here is not incorrect, only – as all science – incomplete (thankfully, giving us more to discover). If you have a university connection, you can get those papers free, lest they add up at about $30 per. This book retails new at a whopping $615, but libraries around the country are casting off books like this for their low-cost-storage-and-handling electronic versions. I got mine for $4.86, plus $3.99 shipping. The cost of a two hour movie, in a mint condition package that will entertain for many years. What a bargain! And what a thrill to dive so deep into the zany world of quantum mechanics. You can’t get any closer to the root fundamentals of existence than that.