Ranging from the physics of elementary particles to the structure of viruses, the subject matter of the book reflects the importance of optical activity and chirality in much of modern science and will be of interest to a wide range of physical and life scientists.

This unique book stands as the only comprehensive introduction to vibrational optical activity (VOA) and is the first single book that serves as a complete reference for this relatively new, but increasingly important area of molecular spectroscopy. Key features: A single-source reference on this topic that introduces, describes the background and foundation of this area of spectroscopy. Serves as a guide on how to use it to carry out applications with relevant problem solving. Depth and breadth of the subject is presented in a logical, complete and progressive fashion. Although intended as an introductory text, this book provides in depth coverage of this topic relevant to both students and professionals by taking the reader from basic theory through to practical and instrumental approaches.

It was not until 1971 that the authority for defining scientific units, the General Conference of Weights and Measures got around to defining the unit that is the basis of chemistry (the mole, or the quantity of something). Yet for all this tardiness in putting the chemical sciences on a sound quantitative basis, chemistry is an old and venerable subject and one naturally asks the question, why? Well, the truth is that up until the mid-1920s, many physicists did not believe in the reality of molecules. Indeed, it was not until after the physics community had accepted Ernest Rutherford's 1913 solar-system-like model of the atom, and the quantum mechanical model of the coupling of electron spins in atoms that physicists started to take seriously the necessity of explaining the chemical changes that chemists had been observing, investigating and recording since the days of the alchemists.

This book details chiroptical spectroscopic methods: electronic circular dichroism (ECD), optical rotatory dispersion (ORD), vibrational circular dichroism (VCD), and vibrational Raman optical activity (VROA). For each technique, the text presents experimental methods for measurements and theoretical methods for analyzing the experimental data. It also includes a set of experiments that can be adopted for undergraduate teaching laboratories. Each chapter is written in an easy-to-follow format for novice readers, with necessary theoretical formalism in appendices for advanced readers.

For Louis Pasteur, the two distinctive properties of dissymmetric systems, optical activity and chiral discrimination, provided prime evidence for a Divine origin to the universe. Handedness appeared to be built into the macrocosm of the galaxies, each with a non-superposable mirror image by virtue of its rotation, as well as the microcosm of each molecule of most natural products. The best that the chemist in the laboratory could accomplish appeared to be the synthesis of the detordu internally-compensated meso-form and, as Pasteur ultimately came to admit, the externally-compensated racemic form. In the latter case the chemist generated not merely one but two chiral structures, although parity, and secondary symmetry generally, seemed to be conserved in the enantiomer antipode pair. The cosmic element in the Pasteur tradition received an augmentation in secular form from demonstrations of the non conservation of parity in the weak interactions, and from the discovery of net circularity in the extra-terrestrial photons, such as those from the less-distant planets, particularly the photons from the Jupiter red-spot. The development of the photoacoustic circular analysers a decade ago was received in fact with as much enthusiasm by the astronomers as by the chemists. It would be just to add, however, that the majority of these circular analysers are now to be found, not in the observatories, but in the physical and chemistry laboratories devoted to the molecular aspects of the Pasteur tradition.

Reference for researchers reviewing the developments in this field over the last 15 years.

This 2-volume set includes extensive discussions of scattering techniques (light, neutron and X-ray) and related fluctuation and grating techniques that are at the forefront of this field. Most of the scattering techniques are Fourier space techniques. Recent advances have seen the development of powerful direct imaging methods such as atomic force microscopy and scanning probe microscopy. In addition, techniques that can be used to manipulate soft matter on the nanometer scale are also in rapid development. These include the scanning probe microscopy technique mentioned above as well as optical and magnetic tweezers.