referencebooks (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} referencebooks) wrote,@ 2005-10-31 09:21:00 |
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| Entry tags: | chemistry, engineering, physics |
Rules of Thumb for Engineers and Scientists
Rules of Thumb for Engineers and Scientists
David Fisher, Editor.
Published by Gulf Publishing Company, 1991.
This is a slender, hardbound book measuring 6" by 9" and running to 242 pages including an appendix, bibliography and two indexes, plus a brief preface and introduction.
This is an unusual science reference book, because in science we are used to encountering hard facts. This book is a compilation of "rules of thumb," scientific "facts" on which scientists routinely use (albeit with caution) in going about their practical work which have never actually been proven. The preface says this:
In science, rules of thumb are poor relations of laws and, although useful, cannot always be depended upon. Perhaps because of this, there tends to be a marked reluctance to disseminate them widely. At the same time, they are frequently proposed in the literature. The present compilation is an attempt to begin to bridge this gap between supply and demand. It should not be assumed to be an exhaustive list of all the rules of thumb that have been discovered. Rather, it should be regarded as a "sampler" of such rules and is a miscellany of those I have found particularly useful or surprising.
The purpose of these rules of thumb is to help scientists and engineers estimate what will happen with the processes they're experimenting with.
Entries explaining these rules of thum range in length from a couple of sentences to over two pages. Understanding them requires knowledge of of chemistry and physics. Here is an example, just for fun:
DARZENS' RULE
It was suggested (Darzens, 1897) that:
Le/Tb = f(Tb/Tc)
where Le is the latent heat of evaporation, Lf is the latent heat of fusion, and T1 is the temperature in degrees Kelvin at which the vapor pressure is equal to 1atm.
The appendix has handy tables of things like melting points, boiling points and critical temperatures of selected compounds and elastic moduli of metallic elements. The bibliography lists the works referenced as the original sources of the rules of thumb included in the book. The indexes include a general subject index and an index of independent variables used in the rules.
This seems to be a handy book for anyone working in a chemistry lab.
