Ann. nucl. Energy, Vol. 11, No. 1/2, pp. 91-92, 1984 Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in Great Britain

BOOK REVIEWS

Nuclear Physics, edited by C. H. DASSO (Proceedings of the Nuclear Physics Workshop, Trieste, Italy, 1981). North- Holland, Amsterdam (1982). 782 pages. US$104.75.

Traditionally a research student will spend one or two years studying with a small group at his home institution, before attending a summer school or similar gathering where he will hear pedagogical lectures on a variety of topics allied to, but not necessarily contiguous with, his own specialized field. Some of these schools, particularly if held in pleasant surroundings and/or organized by institutions of high calibre, attract first-rate lecturers. They become annual events and their proceedings, however published (and often a cheap, photocopied set of notes is all that appears) become valuable source material for the next generation of researchers.

Our student may also, about this time in his studies, attend his first conference. This is quite a different affair. A succession of talks or, more commonly now, poster sessions will present the findings of current researchers in a cryptic manner. If he is lucky, the conference organizers will have asked a senior and respected worker to provide an overview of the subject. With even more luck this summary talk will be just that, though more often most of it is a description of the greybeard's own recent research. The proceedings will then be published, often two years later and in a glossy format at a high price.

These rather sour remarks indicate my feeling that many areas of physics are both so compartmentalized, and so fast- changing as to be unsuited to the production of highly-priced and leisurely-produced conference proceedings, but that carefully prepared pedagogy should certainly be preserved for posterity. The volume reviewed here is an interesting example of a publication combining both these strands. In 1981 the International Centre for Theoretical Physics at Trieste hosted a workshop for students and young researchers, on the general theme of nuclear physics viewed as a quantal many-body problem. Seven subject areas were chosen, in each of which several experts were invited to give a series of introductory lectures. These were followed by a number of seminars, essentially progress reports on individual research program- mes, concluding with a summary talk aimed at pinpointing the progress and problems in each area. This book contains the unedited contributions, or rather, most of them; a few, including unfortunately several of the more interesting lectures and summary talks, are missing, presumably because no typescript was submitted.

On the whole I think my initial prejudices are justified. Most of the seminar contributions are indistinguishable, in material and style, from the (refereed) articles in several respectable journals, such as the same publisher's Nuclear Physics and Physics Letters. These are the obvious sources one refers to for such publications; they are available to and read by all researchers in the field. Accounting for over half the book, these reports contribute to its not inconsiderable size and price.

I asked myself if the book was worth getting for its pedagogical value, and here I cannot give an unequivocal answer. I found a surprisingly strong correlation between the freshness and excitement of a topic, evidenced by the reporting

of new results from recently-commissioned experimental facilities, and the excellence of the lectures describing that subject. For example the lectures dealing with high spin states, and with the uses of heavy ions to study nuclear structure and reactions, will be of great use to all those using, or about to use, the heavy-ion accelerators now running in many countries. The same holds, perhaps surprisingly, for the lectures on giant resonance phenomena; this is because many high quality data from the intermediate energy meson factories have dramatically sharpened our understanding of this subject. By contrast some of the more traditional areas of nuclear theory are rather disappointingly dealt with. On balance, I think that even the presence of a few good lectures is insufficient justification for yet another expensive volume of conference proceedings.

J. EDGINGTON Lecturer in Physics Queen Mary College University of London

91

Phase Transformations During Irradiation, edited by F. V. NOLrE JR. Applied Science Publishers, Barking, Essex, U.K. (1983). £38.00.

With steel components in the core of a fast reactor being required to survive neutron doses equivalent to each atom in their structure being knocked offits site 100 times, it is perhaps not surprising that the steels are affected by this experience. Indeed it is perhaps surprising that they are affected so little. This book brings together most of our current understand- ing of one aspect of the changes that do occur- -phase transformations.

In fact the importance of phase instability in irradiated alloys has been recognized only in the last decade, as large numbers of specimens irradiated to high dose in fast reactors and ion accelerators have become available. Today, phase instability is commonly thought to be one of the most important consequences of irradiation as it affects the structure and properties of steels and other alloys. It is also one of the most scientifically-challenging problems in materials science. The breadth of this challenge is reflected in the subject matter of the book, with chapters ranging from theory, through physics studies of model systems, to an assessment by Bloom and Stiegler of the consequences of the processes reviewed for the design of alloys for service in reactors.

Two important effects are treated, one more important at low temperatures and one more important at elevated temperatures. The first is the radiation disordering of ordered phases, reviewed by Potter. The basic process is straightfor- ward : a toms are knocked off their sites by energetic collisions initiated by fast neutrons, and come to rest in 'wrong' sites, thus disordering the phase. The disorder is healed dynamically by diffusion processes, and the net result is a steady-state degree of disorder that depends on the temperature and damage rate. The free energy of the phase is affected, and of