Elements of Nuclear Physics

8vo (22.5 cm), xvi, 327 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket (dust jacket frayed at extremities and slightly stained, tear to the front flap, closed tear at the head of the rear panel, cloth somewhat rubbed, ownership entry on the front free endpaper). First edition of one of the earliest comprehensive textbooks devoted to the rapidly developing field of nuclear physics, written by Franco Rasetti (1901-2001), the distinguished Italian physicist and close collaborator of Enrico Fermi in the pioneering Rome group whose researches laid the foundations for the discovery of nuclear fission. Drawing on his own experimental work as well as the latest international research, Rasetti presents a systematic survey of nuclear physics as it stood on the eve of the Second World War, emphasizing experimental methods and observed phenomena rather than advanced mathematical theory. The volume covers radioactivity and radioactive series, the structure and properties of atomic nuclei, α-, β-, and γ-radiation, neutrons, positrons, neutrinos, artificial transmutation, nuclear reactions induced by charged particles and neutrons, isotope production, methods of nuclear detection and measurement, and the growing significance of cosmic rays in revealing new elementary particles. Written during one of the most transformative periods in twentieth-century physics, shortly before the discovery of nuclear fission was publicly announced, the work captures the state of knowledge immediately preceding the nuclear age and remains an important historical document of pre-war experimental nuclear physics.…