Customer Reviews

Particles and Nuclei: An Introduction to the Physical Concepts

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Povh, Rith, Scholz, and Zetsche have written an exceptional book about nuclei and particles. It is comprehensive, but not too elaborate to confuse the reader, it is up to date, but provides a thorough guide to the contemporary topics, and it has an unusual structure that is very compelling: In part one, the decomposition of matter down to the structures of elementary particles is presented, in part two, the synthesis of composite systems out of these fundamental particles and their interactions is discussed. This approach is - from a structural point of view - a brilliant idea.

So why do I rate this book with 4 stars only? Maybe because I personally like Donald Perkins' book on high-energy phyics even better (and if the new edition is as good as announced it will probably remain my preferece). The nuclear physics content (my personal field of interest) is also only briefly addressed in the book by Povh et al. (Perkin's book of course contains no introduction to nuclear structure at all, even on a very rough scale, but it has its focus clearly only on high-energy physics whereas Povh et al. also address nuclear structure issues). Clearly, Povh et al. focus on the introduction to a wide field where addtional reading is required anyway.

It would be highly desirable if the authors could enlarge their interesting introductory textbook by a few topical results of nuclear structure physics. But all in all, it is a very good approach to the world of nuclei, particles, and their interactions.