Physical Chemistry

Really great book that covers an extensive array of topics. I was especially interested in the section on chemical kinetics and the various problems at the end of each chapter really help you cement the concepts.

Soo much better than the physical chemistry book my professor uses for our class. It is easy to read, has important equations boxed and highlighted, and focuses on explaining the concepts with minimal math. It has minor errors throughout, but they are mostly errors you can catch easily. Like it will say "in eq. 1 below" and the equation will be eq 2... It's still great. I have mostly been reading the quantum parts though, so I can't say quite as much about the pchem 1 stuff in the first portion. Hope this helps!

needed this book within a week so order it and it made it just in time. book had a small damage but nothing to complain about considering the price. have not really gotten in to the book much so nothing else to add about it. overall i am satisfied

C’est très bien

good condition

This book is good as far as the material, but the problem sets are full of, well, problems. First of all, the answers in the back of the book for the 4th edition use the tables in the back of the book from the 3rd edition. Thus, if an answer involves looking at the data in the appendixes, the answer in the back of the book is almost guaranteed to be slightly off. You do not know than if you are slightly off for a legitimate reason such as forgetting the affect of the change in moles to enthalpy in a constant volume situation or if it just due to the use of the older appendixes. Page 1035 says on the top "Note: In comparing your answers with the values listed, in some cases a difference in the last place may occur if rounding was used in the various steps of the problem. Slight differences in updated thermodynamic data may cause minor changes in a few cases." This is a horrible case of cutting corners. Second of all, many of the problems themselves are based on the appendixes in the older edition. Take for example problem 3.55., which requires that thermodynamic values for nitrite be known, even though they are not given in the 4th edition appendix. This problem turned out to have a significant difference in values between the older and newer appendixes as well. Here is an email I wrote on the issue: "After I tried switching my values from the book to the photocopy of the older edition, I was able to get the exact same answer as the back of the book for all of them. Before, I was combining the nitrite values from the photocopy with the nitrate values from the book. It turns out, though, that while this only makes a slight difference in the enthalpy answer (nitrate is 206.8 kJ/mol in the new versus -205.0 kJ/mol in the old), it makes a huge difference for the entropy. After checking, I found that the absolute entropy difference for the nitrate values (in the newer edition it is given while in the older one it is implied; I used the oxygen and nitrogen entropies from the new book to calculate it) between the difference editions was 45% if you consider the new book to be the true value. I got a value of 80.6749 J/(mol*K) in the older one compared to 146.70 J/(mol*K) in the newer one. This would explain why using the new book, most of the answers are slightly off when compared to the answers in the back of the book. They are using the old values instead of the new ones!" Third of all, some problems make errors that students would make like forgetting that the number of moles has changed after a reaction for a Kp problem (even though the lapse only lasted for one part of the problem). Fourth of all, some problems are just downright missing important data like problem 2.70, which does not give the values for a and b, which are necessary to complete the problem. It turns out that the implied values from the answer in the back of the book are for nitrogen, but the fact that the gas is nitrogen is never mentioned in the problem (guess you just have to be psychic). Good thing I didn't pay full price for this book, because $270 for this book is a rip off

Book had a little more writing in it that I expected, but overall good quality and good price.

The biggest problem with this textbook is the problems. Each chapter has sub-headers. There should be sub-headers in the problem sets that match the sub-headers within the chapter. In fact, there are not. The sub-headers of the problem sets are fewer than the sub-headers of the chapters, and the names of the sub-headers usually do not match. Further, the problems should progress as the chapter progresses. In other words, the first problems should match the material presented at the start of the chapter. As the chapter progresses, so should the problems. Again, this is not the case. The first problem could be from the last page of the chapter, or anywhere else in the chapter. So, if you're having difficulty with a problem, it becomes impossible to target the part of the text that covers the concept of the problem.The text has few worked problems. The authors present a few concepts along with some formulas, then provide a worked problem. How do you know if you discerned the concept? Working problems at the end of the chapter should do it. But, you can't really target problems because the problems don't match the chapter. If you do identify the correct problems to match the concept you're trying to understand, the next step is actually solving the problem. If you can't solve it, there aren't sufficient worked examples to help you through it. Your solution is to go to other textbooks.Given the random method the problems were placed at the end of the chapters, there is no progression. The problems do not generally go from easy to hard, working you up to more difficult concepts. It becomes demoralizing when the first problem assigned by a professor is so difficult you cannot work it. However, the next few problems may be blazingly simple. So, the authors did not take motivating the student into account when generating the problem sets.This textbook is challenged in its presentation of quantum chemistry. Quantum chemistry is often a separate textbook. This book covers it all in one, giant 81 page chapter. Try to match the problems at the end of that chapter to pages in the text!There are a few wrong answers within the problem sets. While this is normally to be expected, the organization of the problems is already problematic, making it difficult for students to be sure the authors are in error. Diligent students will be further frustrated trying to get the author's answers. Given the cost of this book, accuracy should be demanded.The authors present physical chemistry in the historical manner it was discovered. While this is a traditional approach, it is not necessarily the most conducive to student's understanding of the material.There is a CD ROM that accompany's the text. It would be good for presentation of concepts at the middle school level. When you are struggling to work problems, you often refer to the text to ensure you understand the concept. When that fails, you might try looking at the CD ROM. Neither my fellow students nor I ever found the CD ROM to be of any help. It is grossly simplistic.If you're a student forced to use this text because your school requires it, I advise you to get other textbooks and solutions manuals to learn the material. That will be costly, but your grade will likely suffer if you rely solely on this text. This textbook is far from a complete source to learning physical chemistry at the undergraduate level. If you're a professor looking for a physical chemistry textbook, please do your students a favor and do not choose this text.

The book was received in good condition, thanks.