Crc Handbook Of Chemistry And Physics

TeamLRN TeamLRN CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics Editor-in-Chief David R. Lide Former Director, Standard Reference Data National Institute of Standards and Technology Editorial Advisory Board Grace Baysinger Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-5080 Lev I. Berger California Institute of Electronics and Materials Science 2115 Flame Tree Way Hemet, CA 92545 Robert N. Goldberg Biotechnology Division National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Henry V. Kehiaian ITODYS University of Paris VII 1, rue Guy de la Brosse 75005 Paris, France Kozo Kuchitsu Department of Chemistry Josai University, Sakado 350-0295, Japan Gerd Rosenblatt 1177 Miller Avenue Berkeley, CA 94708 Dana L. Roth Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32 1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125 Daniel Zwillinger Mathematics Department Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY 12180 FOREWORD My acquaintance with the CRC Handbook goes back sixty years, for when I was inducted into the wonders of chemistry by an uncle of mine (“Uncle Tungsten”)—I was ten—he lent me his copy of the 23rd (1939) edition. This was not pocket-sized, like the earlier editions he had on his shelf, and indeed contained over 2200 pages, but these were printed on thin India paper, and the whole book, with its soft red morocco cover, fitted easily in the hand. I fell in love with it straightaway—my uncle, seeing this, told me I might keep it—for its tables were so full of information that I thought of it as containing the whole universe between its covers. I was especially attracted to the Physical Constants of Inorganic Compounds, a hundred and fifty densely-packed pages which, through constant poring over, I got almost by heart. I think I owe the only original idea I had in my chemical boyhood to these tables—for, having been struck by the steadily rising melting points and densities of the transition metals in Groups IV-VI as one went from Period 3 to 6 (Ti, Zr, Hf; V, Nb, Ta; Cr, Mo, W), I was then taken aback to find that the Period 7 analogues of these broke the series. Thorium had a lower melting point and density than hafnium; uranium lower ones than tungsten. Could it be, I wondered, that they were not in fact analogues of hafnium and tungsten, not transition metals at all, but belonged to an interpolated series which resembled the rare-earth metals? To my joy, after the War, I found that this naïf idea of mine, a possibly unjustified leap of the imagination, turned out to be true—but it was entirely due to poring over the tables of the CRC Handbook that I owed it. Although my interests later turned more to biology and then medicine, the CRC Handbook has never lost its enchantment for me. I got the 30th (1947) and the 41st (1959-1960) editions—at this point the Handbook still had its smaller format, but had become almost cubical in shape (the 41st edition had nearly 3500 pages); and then, of course, it morphed into its present, monumental format. While I keep the massive recent editions in my study, I keep my