AbstractsChemistry

Note: p. 89 skipped in manuscript. Paralleling the developments in the study of atomic reactions by the discharge tube method (1-4), photochemistry has greatly contributed to the proper understanding of thermal reaction mechanism. Indeed, photochemical methods offer a powerful means of investigating the problems of the interaction of light and matter thus giving an insight into the behavior of individual atoms, radicals and molecules. However, thermal and photochemical processes are closely correlated, the secondary steps in photochemical reactions being properly thermal reactions. Of course, they differ in their primary steps, the activation mechanism involving activation by collision in the case of thermal decomposition and light absorption in the other case.