22 Book review supplement Nature Vol. 258 November 6 1975

anti-Communist should attract a casual events of the physical. The world ters describe experimental methods special kind of moral credit such as is of 'oceanic reality' you reach by way (which are necessarily rather elaborate not accorded to someone who has had of mystical or mescalin experiences. in all reversed-phase partition chroma­ the sense to do neither. Performing One can readily take a magnani­ tographic techniques), stationary phases two intellectual U-turns may purify a mous line towards Mr Koestler as (in considerable detail) and support man's spiritual nature, but it doesn't a man. For instance when he flirts phases. The last by Katykhin is out­ establish him in my opinion as a in The Midwife Toad with Lamarck­ standing and will be very valuable to reliable thinker. What it may do, it ism, one can see his sensc of organic chemists and hiochemists as seems, is provide him with material justice compelling him to establish well as those concerned exclusively for art. Generally speaking the question the claims of dissident off-heat with inorganic separations. This chap­ "Does the end justify the means?" is minds in the dialectical process of ter contains a wealth of tabulated most suited to a College Debating arriving at scientific truth. And material on all the commonly used Society, the answer being given hy a when he attacks determinism one can suppon phases, including physical count of Ayes and Noes. Mr Koestler, only respect that element of the human properties such as density, surface area, as Mr Rees demonstrates, has trans­ spirit which insists on having some say total porosity, average pore diameter, formed an examination of the question in its own fate, and which rejects the capacity for typical organic stationary into a work of art. 1 should have idea of absolute predetermination and phases and HETP values for a wide thought Mr Koestler's argument was inevitability. But one's attitude to him range of chromatographic systems. skewed intellectually by the pressure of as a thinker has to be cautious, clever I nternational suppliers, including those ahnormally strong feelings of guilt­ as paint though he may be. One has to iiI east European countries, arc also you really can't get to the truth when watch out for preoccupation with the tabulated. To my knowledge no such there's so much guilt about the pl aee paranormal turning a man into a para­ extensive compilation has appeared -yet as a work of art the hook is thinker. William Cooper elsewhere. Katykhin also discusses the clearly a classic. But J do feel bound pretreatment of the support materials to look back again to the opposite pole, and column packing. He also includes where 1 find it hard to go along with Chromatographic a description of the preparation of the claims made for Mr Koestler there. sintered porous PTFE blocks which He is extremely clever and he knows Extraction Chromator:raphy. (Journal can be moulded into any required what some of the concepts of the of Chromatography Library, Volume shape, and can be used repeatedly in hard-core sciences are about: 1 take 2.) Edited by T. Braun and G . Gher­ a variety of reversed-phase chromato­ leave to question very seriously the sini. Pp. xvii + 566. (Elsevier Scientific: graphic systems, including annular uses to which he puts them. Amsterdam, London and New York, blocks for continuous chromatography. Of recent years Mr Koestler has 1975.) Dfl. 130; $54.25. The remainder of the book deals become increasingly preoccupied with THE title of this book will be unfamiliar with special applications of extraction the so-called 'para-' subjects-telepathy. to most western practitioners of chro­ chromatography to specific inorganic telekinesis, parapsychology and so on. matographic separation methods. It is ionic groups. Stronski deals with the Tn writing for Nature about Aldous defined in chapter 1 as the reversed­ separation of radionuclides, and shows Huxley, who also came to have this phase partition chromatographic that in the majority of cases a preoccupation, I lumped them all separation of ions usually, although not difference of unity in atomic number tog-ether under the title 'parascience', necessarily, using systems which greatly suffices for complete separation. where 'para-' according to the Oxford favour partition into the stationary Separations of the individual elements English Dictionary meant 'beyond, phase. Various means, including com­ are also usually possible in most vertical wrong, irregular' and according to me plexing and cheIating agents as we1l columns of the periodic table, for could be replaced by 'non-'-'non-' as physical partition, are used to example, l .i, Na, K, Rb and Cs; Ca, being at only one stagc before 'anti-'. achieve this end. The separations des­ Sr and Ba; Au, Pt and Pd; and the Tn The Roots of Coincidence Mr cribed in this book are exclusively halides, F, Cl, Br and I. Complete Koestler begins by trying to establish inorganic, although this does not seem separations in the IVth, Vth and VIth parascience on the same footing as to be intrinsic in the method. groups, however, are still difficult. science; hy saying that theoretical I pcrsonally feel that this nomen­ Separations of the actinides and physics breaks previously sacrosanct clature is unfortunate in that it does lanthanide elements are described in 'laws of nature' in for instance the not give due emphasis to the distribu­ chapters by Muller and Siekierski. concepts of negative mass and time tion between two phases, which is the In summary it seems that good reversal, while parapsychological re­ essential mechanism of all chromato­ separations of most pairs of inorganic search has become more rigorous, graphic processes. It has arisen, ions can now be achieved simply and statistical, computerised. A specious however, from the extensive use of effectively by extraction chromato­ argument: on the one hand negative liquid-liquid extraction in the separa­ graphy both on the analytical and mass and time reversal are straight­ tion of the products of nuclear fission, prcparative scales. The method is forwardly within the logic of the the chromatographic applications particularly suitable for highly radio­ established mathematical metaphor; having followed later. Tn so far as the active elements, as preparative whereas evervhodv knows you can be term extraction chromatography is separations can readily be carried out rigorous, statistical, computerised from restricted to those inorganic chroma­ hy simple remote control in well­ oremisses that are entirely fallacious. tographic separations, in which an ion shielded enclosures, whereas analytical Mr Koestler then goes on to postulate is converted into a non-ionic complex separations can be carried out at such a world of psychic reality alternative to which is extracted preferentially into high dilutions that special precautions that of phsyical reality (and interwoven a non-aqueous stationary phase; it is are usually unnecessary. with it in the matrix of 'oceanic probably an acceptable innovation. This book provides an excellent and reality'; complementarity is invokcd, of Within thcse limits this collaborative complete coverage of the whole field course), where the seemingly acausal work succeeds admirably. After intro­ of the separation of inorganic ions by events of the paraworld - amazing co­ ductory chapters on the theoretical column, thin-layer and paper chroma­ incidences, peculiar premonitions, aspects and the correlation between tographic methods, and as such it is levitating tables and crumpling spoons chromatographic and liquid-liquid highly recommended. - -may he as accounted-for as the partition results, three excellent chap- C. J. o. R. Morris © 1975 Nature Publishing Group