Perhaps the main message to be taken from this work is that the day of laboratory tinkerers and home-built machines seems to have come to an end. There was a time when reasonable shop facilities and a few inexpensive instruments would suffice to answer most questions for the plastics producer, supplier or customer. As described in this book, accurate, meaningful measurements of properties today invariably call for
great precision in machinery as well as sophisticated computing and interpretation, none of which comes cheap.

In research as in production, time and equipment represent precious components of any budget. Unneeded or redundant analyses can be avoided when the whole world of analysis is surveyed. A thorough understanding of the limits and possibilities of each of the methods described here will allow the user to get the maximum return on investment whether it is in computers, instruments, analytical services, or laboratory time.

Hubert Lobo and Jose V. Bonilla. Publisher: Marcel Dekker, Inc. 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 ISBN: 8-8247-0708-7

- Ferdinand Rodriguez is Professor Emeritus, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell University