1 comments about Daily Warm-ups Chemistry: Level II (Daily Warm-Ups) (Daily Warm-Ups).

1. haven't really used it because I teach IPC this year. But would probably use more if I was teaching AP chem

5 comments about The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey Into The Land Of The Chemical Elements (Science Masters Series).

1. This book presents the very basics of the chemical elements and the organization of the periodic table. Atkins' unique approach is to present the material in the form of an analogy, or even an extended metaphor, with the chemical elements as a kingdom, complete with geographical regions, history, laws, and institutions. Along these lines, the book is divided into 3 parts: Geography, History, and Government and Institutions. At the end of the book are found a short list of items for further reading, an index, and a periodic table.
   
   The geographical approach is quite appealing, but somehow falls short of its goal of making the material easily accessible to non-chemists. Describing the sections of the periodic table as having geographic correlates has a lot of explanatory potential. Unfortunately, the maps that are used to illustrate the concepts are presented in varying directions (sometimes from the North looking South, sometimes from the South looking North, etc.), but without directional symbols for orientation. Although orientational clues are generally provided in the captions, interpreting the maps is still far from easy, especially since the elements are not labeled. Readers who don't have a thorough familiarity with the periodic table will find it useful to study these maps with a periodic table in hand for comparison, hence the usefulness of the periodic table that is included at the back of the book. (Unfortunately, I never discovered this table until I had already read the book through, since it isn't referenced anywhere in the text.)
   
   One reason I picked up this book is that I have always been fascinated with the organization of the elements in the period table. I know there are alternative forms for representing the organization of the elements, such as the 3-D Periodic Round Table, which shows continuities between sub-groups rather than simple column edges. I'd like to know more about why our usual 2-D periodic table is arranged the way it is, and what relationships are encoded in its presentation. Atkins touches on these subjects with both historical information and discussion of chemical properties and bonds. However, I found his prose often obtuse, and after reading the book, I'm still unclear about many of the key issues. It seems as though the metaphor of the elements as a kingdom sometimes gets pushed a bit too far and hinders rather than helps clarity. Nevertheless, the book does have some interesting sections and up-to-date information about basic chemistry.



2. As a physicist, I have always felt I understood the basic concepts of atomic structure, the Bohr atom through the Dirac treatment of relativistic electrons and that was enough about chemistry that I needed to know. Of course, that was a very shortsighted point of view and did nothing for a practical understanding of how the elements interact. This book gives a wonderful introduction to just that topic. It starts off with an overview of how the basic properties of the elements vary, in a systematic way, across the periodic table. The books metaphor of a new land, makes it amazingly easy to remember these properties. Nothing else I've read has been as successful as conveying this. I would buy this book for the first four chapters alone. There are, of course, some problems with the book. For one, the author seems to have gotten a "new word a day" calendar and seems to feel the need to use them. ("Complexity can effloresce from subtly different consanguinity.") But fortunately, these are few and far between. Could a non-technical person read and enjoy this book? I have no idea but I would recommend they try.



3. As someone who teaches first year undergraduate students about periodic trends and attempts to give them an underlying cause that isn't physical chemistry heavy, this book has been an excellent source of discussion fodder for me. I enjoyed reading it the first time, though it didn't present anyting new. What it did do, for which I am very grateful, is present the material in a different, and visualizable way - a way that can be modified to the classroom.
   
   The metaphor gets a little heavy-handed towards the end, and at times I wished Atkins would lay off it a little, but this is likely due to my previous immersion in the material and not a problem with the book. Were it my first or second time through the material, or if I were a gen. chem. student struggling with the concept, I wouldn't feel so "let's get on with it" about it at all.



4. I very much agree with the review by Publishers Weekly, which stated that this book is "remarkably tedious." The concept of likening the periodic table of chemical elements to a landscape is near brilliant. It could have worked so wonderfully well, if only it had been better done. The author of this book was... at the time of its writing... a middle-aged British university professor, and he writes like you would expect him to talk. Wordy, wordy, wordy! It takes forever to dredge through the written material to get to a gleaming nugget of knowledge. It's rather like watching an English movie from the 1940s. Another glaring... REALLY obvious... deficiency of this book is the lack of adequate visual representations. There are a few black and white "maps" of the "landscape" of the periodic table, with the components thereof very poorly labeled. What this book needs is a quite thorough editing and modernizing by an American editor. It's sad that this book could have been so very much more than it is.



5. Peter Atkins has written a moderately interesting chemistry book for a generalist audience in which he explains the relationships between the elements of the periodic table in a pseudo-geographical method in which the periodical table is analogized to a map. I have had numerous collegiate chemistry courses, and while I personally found Atkins' approach occasionally unsatisfying, I can understand how someone new to chemistry would find the book interesting and useful.
   
   Atkins strives long and hard to explain various characteristics of the elements (and later ionic and covalent bonding) via his geographical metaphor. I think his insight to write this book was utterly brilliant, but unfortunately the book is frequently troubled with extremely flowery and obfuscating prose, as well as a tendency to drift into tedium. The other major problem with the book is the lack of illustrations: for a book claiming relationships based on a graphical understanding of the relative positioning of elements, the almost total absence of illustrations is an obvious problem. To be completely fair, there a few black and white illustrations and a basic periodic table included, but the illustrations are inadequate, and few and far between.
   
   Overall I found the book to be a quick and modestly enjoyable volume to read, but wish that the brilliant promise of the concept had been fulfilled more completely.

1 comments about Chemistry & Chemical Reactivity: Student Solutions Manual.

1. I never had interest in chemistry (and probably never will) but I found this book easier than most. By easier I do not mean that there is not much content, but the way of writing and the explainations are given in simple terms, making it better than most books. Many concepts which were greek to me were easily understood, and the excersises were designed to make a person think and apply knowledge. It is a good book, but then again, unless you're interested in chemistry this book won't magically pour knowledge of chemistry into your head. All this does is make you learn chem the way it should be learned, by understanding and applying knowledge. Among most of the chem books i've come across I'd rate this as one of the best. This manual is useful for lab exercises, if you're a student. After using this book a lot of lab excersises were very very easy to me, and I understood concepts more than by listening to the professor.

No comments about Chemical Reactions and Chemical Reactors.

1 comments about Surface Analysis - The Principal Techniques.

1. When I began my phD I've had to learn a lot about different techniques that I worked with. This book was an excellent help, since, despite it is written by specialists, it has an approach that even a beginner can understand.
   I was further surprised in the end of my thesis when I used it once more to write deeply about the techniques. It is really a wonderful book!
   The first chapter is also a good course concerning the basis of vaccum, that is required to deal with surface science techniques.

No comments about Organic Chemistry: Supplementary Problems Set for Jones's Organic Chemistry, Third Edition, Student's Version.

No comments about Guided Inquiry Experiments for General Chemistry: Practical Problems and Applications.

No comments about Survival Guide for General Chemistry with Math Review.

No comments about HGS Molecular Structure Model.

No comments about Experiments in General Chemistry.