Momentum

There are, of course, several other books that derive and explain the details and myriad equations involved in our understanding of angular momentum (e.g. Edmonds, Judd). However, none of them explain the mathematics and physical results in "simple English" as well as Zare's. The problem sets and applications are particularly helpful and relevant to a wide variety of common experimental techniques and data analyses. I also strongly recommend purchasing the companion solutions manual. The only derogatory comment that I can make is that there are much better programs available for calculating the 3, 6, and 9J symbols than those found in the appendix. I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone.

I have read this book with a great joy. The author of this book is a leading authority in the field of reaction dynamics, and has played a key role in applyingp the vector correlation in physical chemistry problems. The best part of this book probably is the example/problem set part where the reader is asked to use the knowledge obtained from the chapter to solve the "real" problem (mostly on spectroscopy and the gas phase reaction dynamics). I highly recommend this book.

This is a well-written and very interesting book with (perhaps) an unfortunate title. My first reaction was "A book devoted to angular momentum? Who would read such a thing?"

Ignore the title and look at the sub-title: "Understanding Spatial Aspects in Chemistry and Physics." This book covers everything from polarized fluorescence spectroscopy to molecular beam scattering to molecular reorientation in liquids. All of these topics have one thing in common -- they are spatially anisotropic, and Zare leads the reader through a tutorial on their analysis.

There are other books on this topic. (The monographs by Rose and by Brink and Satchler come to mind.) To my taste, they are dry and boring.

Zare's book is different. Although he presents the material with the same rigor, he also includes 16 "applications" (i.e. problem sets) that showcase some of the most elegant physical chemistry/chemical physics problems of the century. For example, their are applications dealing with scattering, polarized fluorescence, Zeeman quantum beats, correlation functions in spectroscopy, and the spectroscopy of diatomic molecules. These applications usually cover real molecular problems -- not watered down analogues. Zare's discussion of spherical tensor operators deserves special note for its clarity.

This book should be approachable to anyone with at least one semester of graduate quantum chemistry or physics under their belt.

It is a GREAT book, I enjoyed reading it. Clear, easy to follow the steps of Momentum Building. This book serves as a guide and can be applicable for any size or any type of company that wants to be the successful. The well selected case studies of market leader high tech companies - Cisco, HP, Oracle, IBM and so forth - evidently illustrate the efforts that leaders must undertake in order to build their brand momentum within the Marketplace of Ideas, "where always the best reveal" (J. Milton).

For a PR professional, as I am, it was helpful to understand how important and complex a job it is to keep your CEO personality and the company proposition aligned and consistent. "As a source of future credibility in customer's minds, management vision always exists in relationship to product or service" (pp. 159). Moreover a CEO's vision can determine the future of a whole industry.

This book is a must read for university students in marketing, communications and business fields. Particularly if dealing with research studies; in this research, conducted by Ricci and Wolkmann, students can follow through the design, variables and connections between them, furthermore see great examples and it is not mere statistics.

The technology industry is presently going through a structural shift -- not merely a cyclical downturn. In an attempt to meet the increasing demands of customers, many or most companies in the industry's various fields are struggling to sell something more than products. Market leaders are selling frameworks, roadmaps and solution sets. They are selling ideas -- and trying to earn back lost trust in the process. That's critical. The technology industry is in the midst of an extraordinary backlash. Its full revival depends on winning back this trust.

Ron Ricci and John Volkmann have written a timely and extremely readable book that outlines these trends and dynamics -- and then offers prescriptive solutions to guide forward-looking executives in the digital realm. As the authors point out, companies must differentiate themselves in "the markeplace of ideas" if they are to become "unstoppable" in the coming years. That means they must engage the minds and elicit the participation of their customers, partners and other parties; not overwhelm them with slick propaganda and manipulative sales techniques. As Ricci and Volkmann demonstrate, smart companies now realize they must develop customers and influential networks, not merely develop new products and "release" them to a confused marketplace.

If there is one concept in the book that is worthy of debate it is the idea of heavily promoting the "CEO's vision." This is unquestionably a powerful way of "communicating existing, and sometimes complex, ideas about possibilities, new innovations and new models" to prospective customers and other key parties. However, in this day and age, CEOs can fall from grace quite easily. If too much of the company's brand is invested in a single individual, it runs a risk that at least deserves further consideration. Why not "scale" the vision of an entire executive team -- or depersonalize the effort altogether? Clearly, there are trade-offs to be assessed.

That said, I highly recommend this book as a seminal contribution to an emerging field: thought leadership marketing. Ricci and Volkmann have built an effective case -- based on both qualitative and quantitative insights. They have demonstrated the power that ideas, trust and market-driven value will play in the next economy.

A must read for any company that plans to grow - whether a large multinational conglomerate or a small start up. At its heart, I believe, the book is about creating a growth platform for the company - a compelling value proposition that its customers demand; a motivating vision against which its employees can execute; and a strategic direction that investors and shareholders can comfortably expect. Ron Ricci and John Volkmann cleverly use basic principles of physics to argue that it is not just the speed of change that matters but the overall momentum that a company can generate in the marketplace. The lessons in the book are particularly relevant in today's networked world as companies look to leverage their extended enterprise for breaking away from their industry peers. While the authors use several high tech company examples to illustrate their message, this book is equally applicable in almost every industry. In Pharmaceutical companies looking to carve out therapeutic categories or financial service companies looking to partner in wealth management will find the messages relevant. Personally I found the book a very entertaining read - clear, easy to comprehend yet provocative.

Very enjoyable book, written from several points of view. Personal excerpts, meditation, poetry all seem to flow very nicely.

I lead journal workshops and find that this book is an excellent resource for writing about sensual experiences. The meditations are useful and workable. This is as much as a workbook as it is a reference book. I highly recommend it for all levels of adult journalists. I find it goes well with: The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron; The Love Poems of Rumi by Deepak Chopra; The Four Agreements by Ruiz

This book is a presentation of easy to follow instructions for writing your own journal. I find the examples very helpful but would appreciate more direct instruction. My favorite sections are the haiku-like meditations, the guided meditation, and the poetry that concludes this book.

This book provides a pleasant alternative to the more classical books by Edmonds, Brink and Satchler or Rose: it's much more fun! The large number of illustrations (127) helps the reader to grasp some fundamental aspects of angular momentum. All the basics of this subject are covered. The reading is facilitated by the fact that many proofs are left as exercices (and can be found in more classical treatments of the subject). For those who have Mathematica at their disposal, the programs that are included in the book can fruitfully by used for further exploration of the properties of angular momentum.

Since its publication in 1957, Edmonds has been the reference for physicists and chemists interested in angular momentum calculations in molecular, atomic, nuclear and sub-atomic physics. Though it contains some typos in various editions, one famous instance being the reversal of conventions in a couple of key definitions between the 2nd revised printing in 1968 and 3rd printing in 1974, it remains a standard for a two generations of scientists.

Interesting and novel perspective on management balance between the forces of change and those of continuing operations.
Lew Allyn, Chairman
Welch Allyn, Inc.

Change Creators & Momentum Maximizers provides a fresh and insightful description of organizations and their productivity. This book catalyzes fundamental business structure and operations dynamics to yield a clear description and new perspective regarding the process of change within organizations.
Carl E. Bretko, President/COO - DentalEz Group

An interesting and well presented treatise that can be helpful and thought provoking for top management. Since Momentum Maximizers and Change Creators are relatively new terms, they can be useful in managing an organization.
Albert Duval, CEO & Chairman - Hammermill Paper Co (retired)

Author offers a very interesting premise in the way he segments the activities in a business. It's a logical and rational way to differentiate the various drivers that are present.
James Perry, President & CEO - Global Thermoelectric Inc. (Canada)

William Miller has written a rare common sense guide through the jungle of the supply chain to maximize productivity while also driving change. The book is well written and erudite, unusual in management books.
D.E.I. Smyth, Senior Vice President, Corporate and Government Affairs, H.J. Heinz Company

This is a strong concept, present early in the text...unique and well presented. This is a good, no-nonsense book that should be helpful to those that read it.
Writers Showcase Review

Interesting and novel perspective on management balance between the forces of change and those of continuing operations.
Lew Allyn, Chairman,
Welch Allyn, Inc.

Change Creators & Momentum Maximizers provides a fresh and insightful description of organizations and their productivity. This book catalyzes fundamental business structure and operations dynamics to yield a clear description and new perspective regarding the process of change within organizations.
Carl E. Bretko, President/COO -
DentalEz Group

An interesting and well presented treatise that can be helpful and thought provoking for top management. Since Momentum Maximizers and Change Creators are relatively new terms, they can be useful in managing an organization.
Albert Duval, CEO & Chairman -
Hammermill Paper Co (retired)

Author offers a very interesting premise in the way he segments the activities in a business. It's a logical and rational way to differentiate the various drivers that are present.

James Perry, President & CEO -
Global Thermoelectric Inc. (Canada)

William Miller has written a rare common sense guide through the jungle of the supply chain to maximize productivity while also driving change. The book is well written and erudite, unusual in management books.
D.E.I. Smyth, Senior Vice President, Corporate and Government Affairs,
H.J. Heinz Company

This is a strong concept, present early in the text...unique and well presented. This is a good, no-nonsense book that should be helpful to those that read it.
Writers Showcase Review

This book, Mastering Momentum, reminded me to focus on how to motivate my team to better performance. I liked that the writing style was engaging and that the content was "skimable" -- that I could get the general meaning of a section by reading the headers but drill down into the details for more ideas and specific suggestions on a theme.

I work in Change Management and enjoyed this book because I strongly believe in continuously sharpening my skill set and feeding my mind materials that challenge me to THINK.

angular momentum additio

I thought this book was very short to begin with (only 104 pages of actual text, plus some small apendixes)...hardly worth $42 for a small amount of text. It's also very old (written in 1995). The content which is in the book is very difficult to apply because you really need a research tool (like tradestation) to apply these ideas. Numerous ideas in earlier chapters are brought back in later chapters and you have to go back and re-read to see what each indicator meant. I think all in all he just applies his idea of double smoothing to filter out misleading chart data....nothing revolutionary, and hardly worth the price.
Also, as odd as this may seem, with all the math involved, 90% of the charts which he derives from these mathematical formulas look exactly like a line chart of the security!
If you have access to tradestation, this book is worthwhile if you put the time into understanding all the concepts involved.

Ok, in the introduction to this book the author states this book is about price change and utilizing double smoothing as a means of determining entry and exit points. So, for the previous two reviewers, did you not read the intro, or the rest of the book? First, this is an intro into the subject and the use of EMAs is a common method (and he in fact discussed the lag inherent in this and other methods). Second, the book never purports to be about reading price patterns, it is about price change and the use of double smoothing so of course indicators will be its focus, indicators are a powerful (not sole) tool in many traders toolboxes. With that said, the author guides you through the True Strength Index, Stochastics, Tick Volume, Directional Trending - he includes their calculations and the Easylanguage Code for everything discussed in the book. That is something I like because some books, like Strategies for the Electronic Futures Trader by Bernstein do not include code and the systems are once again for the novice. The charts he displays are all daily charts so it is not even geared for the intraday trader if that is what you are after, but they do in many cases contain several subgraphs so you can compare the difference between the various indicators and their tendencies. The author also states clearly that these tools and the examples are not meant to be trading systems by themselves, so there are no black boxes here. Just ideas, so if you are looking for a new look at momentum or want to try something new with your own indicators this might be a nice book. I was able to pull a couple of ideas out that I am incorporating into my trading to better transition from trending to congestion (a large focus of the book). However, I checked this out of the library and it was worth the gas to pick it up, but would I have paid 40 bucks, now that I don't know. As for the reason I only gave it three stars is mainly for content, this is an ideas book, not anything more, and for its size I feel that to be a good rating.

OK where did my previous review of this book go? I wrote it months ago was it lost?

Can't be bothered writing the whole thing again, so in summary: it is an excellent book, picks a main concept of smoothing and constructs some excellent indicators, and many different ones, has great ideas, inspires great ideas, has code / formulas you name it, extremely worthwhile for anyone who is serious and capable of putting these things into use.

That means constructing them and understanding them.

Some reviewers seem disappointed ... I suspect some people think "momentum" is some magic bullet that will get them into a stock before it moves, other reviewers are arguing definitions, all I can say is that when I first got hold of this book I took a look and did not really like it, but after working my way through it found it to be truly a gem.

Very worthwhile.

And where did my previous review go? grrrr