19 August 1963

Mr. Stanley Schaefer

W. H. Freeman and Company

660 Market Street

San Francisco 4, California

Dear Stan:

Under separate cover I am returning the manuscript of A. K. Barnard on The Theoretical Basis of Inorganic Chemistry.

I wrote a few days ago to you (in fact, today 14 August, but this letter will wait to be typed) saying that I do not want it in the series, and that I doubt that you should publish this book - that it is too superficial.

I think that the author is behind the times. During the last half century it was the custom in the leading British universities for advanced students to specialize nearly completely. A student working for a doctor's degree in inorganic chemistry would devote all of his time to inorganic chemistry - perhaps even to one branch of inorganic chemistry. He would, when he received his Ph. D., know much more about his field of research than a corresponding student in the United States. He would, however, often have a rather vague idea about other branches of chemistry and of related fields of science, such as physics and mathematics.

There were, of course, exceptional men among these students, who were able to obtain a broad and deep knowledge of a large field of science; but the standard was as I have described.

The American Ph. D., with the same ability, would know less, when he got his Ph. D., than his English counterpart; but he would have a better background, which might enable him to make greater progress.

During the last decade or two the British universities have been changing their system. Whereas formerly a student in the field of inorganic chemistry would be expected to have only a superficial understanding of physical chemistry, quantum theory, statistical mechanics, spectroscopy, and so on. The student at Cambridge University, for example, is now expected to take some sound courses in some of these fields.

The same attitude applied also to students for the bachelor's degree.

I think that Barnard is attempting to provide the student of inorganic chemistry with a smattering of knowledge in physical chemistry and structural chemistry, enough to permit him to discuss subjects in these fields and possibly to use the methods of these fields to some extent; but I think that he has not been successful.

On the attached sheets I make some detailed comments - they are only representative of a much larger number that I might have listed. I have not bothered to point out minor errors, such as misspelled words and poor English.

The discussion of chemical thermodynamics, beginning on page 556, is especially poor. This is a difficult subject, and the effort that the author has made to present it in a few pages has failed. For example, near the top of page 337 the author gives the formula for the entropy in terms of the probability W, and says that W is the probability of finding the substance in that state. He clearly suggests that probability is the ordinary sort of probability, which has the value unity for certainty and a smaller value for any case less than certainty. This is not the correct meaning of W, however. In the next paragraph the author comes a little closer to being correct, when he says that the probability can be measured by the number of ways in which the state can be realized; but he never gets around to defining W in a correct way.

On page 338 he states that a reaction is not spontaneous at 25°C, but is spontaneous at l000°K. He apparently thinks that if the change in standard free energy is positive the reaction does not take place, and if it is negative it does take place (is spontaneous). In my elementary textbooks I have, as have other authors, attempted to prevent the student from getting this idea, which he surely would get from Barnard's treatment.

Superficiality and lack of clarity are characteristic of every section of the book. I do not believe that you could get the author to revise it in a way that I would consider satisfactory.

Sincerely yours,

Dictated by Linus Pauling

Signed in his absence:hpg

Encl.