author is generally not rigorous and not clearly intelligible although, to the specialist, Becker's way of looking at problenis always provides interesting insight. For example, on osmotic pressure, the dilute-solution limit is silnply quoted as a %urprisingly simple" result without explanation; on the other hand, careful study of the two accompanying diagrams to this discussion should provide the reader with a permanent imprint of the essential aspects of the physical phenomenon involved.
The treatment of statistical mechanics and quantmn statistics (quantuin mechanics per se is "recollected"), and tile very many different applications of methodology given by the author, co1~stitute a singularly clear and sthmdating exposition of the field. The author's highly individual ~pproach may, on occasion, offend the views of some readers (e.g., Becket's remarks about entropy S k in ignorance, which is sometimes written S = k In W where W "has nothing to do with what is more commonly called probability"), but it is always informative and worth studying.
As has already been noted, the topical coverage is exceptionally broad including, at various depths, such diverse studies as Van Xampen's method of statistical phases, saddle-point method, Mayer's cluster integrais, nucleation and the Beeker-D6ring theol5 ~ of the kinetics of droplet formation, order-disorder phenomena in crystals, Bethe's treatment of the Ising model, ferromagnetism, matrix methods, Langevin equation, random walk, Fokkel~Planck equation, Nyquist's theorem and shot noi~se, Cox's treatment of irreversible thelznodynanlics, thermoelectric phenomena, etc,
The book contains a few misprints (e.g., omission of the factor hT in the seventh line on p. 67) and no problems. This is an excellent reference work and supplementary text for a course b~sed on less ambitious treatises or more exemsive books written for specialists in narrower fields. On the other hand, in the hands of a gifted instructor, Becket's book ]nay well prove to be !an excellent hitroductory text for a firstyear graduate course in statistical physics.