An unusual example of hidden kinetic information in unpublished Ph.D. theses
✍ Scribed by Brian G. Gowenlock
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1995
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 124 KB
- Volume
- 27
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0538-8066
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The pressure to publish is a common feature of university life. As a result it is now rare to find that a considerable body of excellent experimental work can lie hidden in unpublished Ph.D. theses. In North America the availability of Dissertation Abstracts has given access to the summaries of theses which might otherwise have passed notice by interested workers and this has often led to the avoidance of unnecessary duplication of work. In other countries such informative details can remain unnoticed in university libraries.
From my own experience of over 48 years in research in chemical kinetics I know of a substantial group of unpublished Ph.D. theses which resulted from over 20 years of research supervision by Dr. Charles Horrex of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Unlike most academics he was unduly cautious in publishing work which he supervised even though this was urged upon him by the examiners of these theses, myself included. As a result, from all the work which he initiated in St. Andrews (1947-77) only one preliminary communication resulted [l], and the studies which dealt with the enthalpy of formation and reactions of benzyl radicals are known only to a very small number of gas kineticists. I therefore wish to draw the attention of the community of kineticists to the following Ph.D.