5 comments about Chemistry Connections: The Chemical Basis of Everyday Phenomena, Second Edition (Complementary Science).

1. I found Chemistry Connections very interesting and informative. I am a high school science teacher and I already have a strong background in chemistry. The format presents infomation on each question at multiple levels of sophistication, from introductory information accessible without much knowledge of chemistry to in-depth information on specific molecular structures and interactions. This book would be a great resource for chemistry teachers. My only critisism is that the writing style could be a bit more engaging.



2. Overall this book and is fairly successful in its aim of explaining a selection of everyday chemical phenomena in terms accssible to most people. There are a couple of points which really let it down though.
   First, the presentation of the material and the diagrams could be greatly improved. For example, there is a "3-D" structure of EDTA given. In fact, it just seems to be a 2-D Chemdraw diagram pasted in to Chem3D! It gives no sense of how the dispostion of the oxygen and nitrogen atoms allow EDTA to surround the metal centre thus making it an effective metal sequestering agent.
   Second, certain sections go in to extraordinary detail concerning the physical chemistry of certain phenomena. Rather complicated equations and diagrams are presented which don't aid the reader in really understanding conceptualising the processe which are described.
   Third, annoyingly, temperatures are presented only in Fahrenheit. Hello!? Did the authors not consider that they may have readers outside of the US.....
   (...)



3. Now in an updated second edition, Chemistry Connections: The Chemical Basis Of Everyday Phenomena is an amazing volume with chapters based around answers to questions such as "What causes an egg to crack if it's boiled too rapidly?"; "Why do carbonated drinks go flat as they warm?"; "Why do lightsticks glow?"; "How does a timed-release medicine work?"; and much, much more. The collaborative effort of Kerry K. Karukstis (Professor of Chemistry, Harvey Mudd College) and Gerald R. Van Hecke (Professor of Chemistry, Harvey Mudd College), Chemistry Connections is an absorbing intermediate to advanced level chemical text that makes learning chemistry a lot of fun in some unique but quite effective ways.



4. There are a lot of books out there explaining the chemistry of everyday things. For sheer readability, I recommend Prof. Joe Schwarcz's series of books, which are readily available on Amazon. The shortcoming of Dr. Joe's books, and most books for the general public, is that they aren't really meant to be a resource for teachers of chemistry. They only include the most basic of explanations that the layman can understand.
   
   Thus, the need for a book like "Chemistry Connections." It contains the same "basic-level" explanation for a layperson, but also has a second explanation for each subject giving details on a more scientifically rigorous scale. Then there's a section of references (often reputable websites, vetted by the authors) for people that want to get even more in depth.
   
   The way the explanations are written, and the choice of topics, makes this a resource best suited to the high-school chemistry classroom, or to a "liberal arts" (chemistry for non-chemists) university course. The explanations tend to be a little thin for a true freshman-level calculus-based chemistry course. That's not to say that a thoughtful professor can't make great use of this book for any level course - the choices of chemical questions are varied and thoughtful, making it a great reference when planning lessons.
   
   The book is not perfect. It does not have the zing or flow of many other books for sheer readability - it's best used as a resource to give ideas for presentations and lesson examples for high school or liberal arts courses. There are some typos - there is a pentavalent organic carbon (horror of horrors!) in one diagram, for example. Finally, some of the detailed explanations tend to wander off-topic, for example, explaining how polymers are synthesised in a section on polymer structure. While interesting, it was not relevant to the particular question at hand, and likely to be confusing for the student.



5. Have you always been somewhat fascinated by chemistry? In college was a chemistry minor, and thought it was very exciting. It explans the many whys and hows behind basic everyday chemistry. Is this book super technical, no. Does it have enough science in it to make it credible, definately.
   Some of the topics that are included are:
   
   Why are Opals and Pearls Iridescent?
   Why are Ice Cubes Cloudy on the Inside?
   What Makes a No-Tears Champoo?
   How do Sutures Dissolve?
   Why do Lightsticks glow?
   Are Flamingos Naturally Pink?
   
   There are almost 100 of these types of questions. This book might make a great reference for a teacher, or a student in a science fair. The book covers some basic chemistry, and does a great job in building up some excitement around a subject that some may think is dull.
   I really enjoyed the book because it is broken up into sections: gases, solutions, solids, thermodynamics, and then into the questions that apply to those subjects. The book is a fairly easy read, and thankfully isn't too techincal for those of us who may not be so fresh on some of our chemical understanding.

No comments about Chemistry (Flash Cards).

1 comments about Instant Notes in Inorganic Chemistry (The Instant Notes Chemistry Series).

1. This book is pretty much what it claims to be - a book of summary notes for topics in Inorganic Chemistry. It's rather well-written and attempts to break-down concepts into easy-to-understand summaries.
   It's best used in conjunction with your textbook. I would read the chapter in the textbook (we used Housecroft's book) and then read the corresponding topic summary in this book to simplify and reinforce the ideas. I also used it to review before exams instead of re-reading the chapters in the textbook.
   You can get this book used here on Amazon at a very reasonable price, so it's hard to go wrong picking this book up.

1 comments about Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry: A Laboratory Manual.

1. A course on inorganic synthesis and reactions should involve the preparation of inorganic compounds using vacuum line, air- and moisture-exclusion, electrochemical, high-pressure and other synthetic techniques. It should investigate the kinetic and mechanistic studies of inorganic compounds.

   "Synthesis and Techniques in Inorganic Chemistry" simply fulfills all the above purposes. While undergraduate chemistry usually doesn't focus on inorganic laboratory, text written with this much details is a rarity.

   With 23 experiments and an appendix on techniques, this lab text covers cutting-edge research type of experiments on superconductivity, molecular sieve zeolite-X and buckminsterfullerene (C60). Organometallics is also covered with experiments on organoiron and metal carbonyl cluster. The classical coordination compounds synthesis and mechanism and vacuum line synthesis can also be found in this text.

   Students can pace and select experiments from all major topic areas over the course of one semester. This is a great resource and reference for modifying existing experiments and shaping up lab techniques.

1 comments about The Defect Chemistry of Metal Oxides (Monographs on the Physics and Chemistry of Materials).

1. This book is an excellent introduction to defect chemistry of materials. But, as an added bonus, it also comprehensively covers most of the fundamentals in the defect chemistry theory making it an excellent textbook.

4 comments about The Ingredients: A Guided Tour of the Elements.

1. Philip Ball's The Ingredients is a short and sweet introduction to the chemical elements. It is not a comprehensive description of each of the 110+ elements that appear on the periodic table. Rather it is a history of the concept of an element and a definition of what an element is done in context with examples. All the important terms from Chemistry 101 are there - atom, electron, element, isotope, neutron, nucleus, proton - as are all the important people and events in the history of the elements, but it is done in Ball's extremely readable prose style. Even though I've taught basic chemistry at the high school level and I've heard all this stuff before, I thoroughly enjoyed this short, but concept dense book.



2. There are 92 naturally occuring elements. They have been here since the Earth cooled, but only in the last couple of centuries have we truly come to understand them. In 'the ingredients', Phillip Ball takes the reader on a fast ride through the development of our understanding of the elements. Aristotle and his contemporaries saw everything pretty much as a combination of earth, wind, fire, and water. Variations of this view lasted well in the middle ages.
   
   The chapter on gold, precious from ancient times, is a bridge, bringing us into the modern age, where we see the development of the Periodic Table, an organization of information about the elements. Scientific method and technological advances allowed chemists to identify each of the elements. Physics, radiochemistry and quantum mechanics provided an explanation of why they act as they do.
   
   There are interesting discussions of medicine, alchemy and other topics. The chapter on manmade elements is also interesting.
   
   This little book was fun to read and should be easily followed by the non-scientific reader.



3. Philip Ball is one of the better authors in the realm of general science literature. This short book examines the Periodic Table of Elements and how the various elements were discovered by humans, and what function they serve in nature and human society. Combining a history of discovery, with hard science about many of the elements, the book is a good, interesting, easy-to-read primer in basic chemistry and how materials science.



4. As-of this writing, June 2008, "The Ingredients" is in-print as an Oxford University Press Very Short Introduction titled "The Elements".

1 comments about Inorganic Chemistry.

1. Wulfsberg's Inorganic Chemistry manages to escape the obvious pitfalls of a first-edition text: it is not similar to other texts already on the market, and it is fairly error-free. Being error-free is no mean feat, especially when you consider that Shriver and Atkin's 3rd (!) edition of their text is rife with mistakes. In fact, in many ways this Wulfsberg offering is better than any other inorganic text on the market. There are also some serious drawbacks, however.

   First the positive. I've already mentioned the fact that there are few errors. Another BIG adavantage is the scope of the text: it covers the entire periodic table. The introductory chapters (11 of 17) cover general trends, including symmetry, redox, crystal field theory, etc. Only 4 chapters are devoted to that insidious practice of qualitative description of compounds and their physical properties. Finally, the text is arranged so that chapters are roughly independent - it is not a detriment to skip over a chapter here and there if your course content so requires.

   Unfortunately, these positives are almost evenly balanced by some serious (in my opinion) negatives. For starters, the text is boring! Even I, the professor, find it difficult to read. Part of the problem is that the author seems to think that 2 pages of text is better at explaining something than a half-page picture. This makes for heavy reading when trying to study! Secondly: there is too much hand-waving description relative to hard chemical theory. This may be fine for a 2nd-year level course, but most professors will want a text that has enough depth that they can use it in a 3rd- or 4th-year course as well, and I'm afraid this is a little superficial in places. Finally, I have to question the fact that crystal-field theory has an entire chapter devoted to it, while ligand-field theory (and consquently, symmetry-adapted orbitals) is essentially ignored. In my experience, both as a student and as a prof, anyone who learns LFT finds it much easier and more satisfying than the gross simplifications (and outright errors!) of CFT.

   I have used this text and Shriver and Atkins's text as assigned books for my 3rd-year inorganic courses. For my money, Shriver and Atkins, in spite of its overemphasis on physical chemistry and numerous errors, is still a better text. However, I'm anxiously looking forward to a second edition of Wulfsberg, as it wouldn't take too much effort to make it a superior product.

5 comments about Basic Inorganic Chemistry, 3rd Edition.

1. The buyer of this book may be mislead by its description. This is not the softcover edition of Basic Inorganic Chemistry, but the Solutions Manual for Basic Inorganic Chemistry. It is virtually useless without the pricey hardcover companion text. I would not recommend it unless you already own the companion text.



2. This textbook is written in an easy to follow matter unlike other inorganic textbooks in the market that is harder to understand.It gives good examples for an introductory course especially for first year University students.The only downside is that, advanced concepts are not or insufficiently discussed.But in the Advanced Inorganic Chemistry textbook by the same author,these concepts are discussed in more depth. I would recommend that any student who is interesed in inorganic chemistry should get both the basic inorganic and advanced inorganic textbooks .With these two books you should have no problem understanding the wide topic of inorganic chemistry.By using an introductory and an advanced text, the student is slowly introduced to the topic.Instead of being thrown headon into reading and understanding a single inorganic chemistry book



3. Presents a good overview on most of the elements. The basic edition is realy the same as the Advanced edition but with some of the Transition Metal stuff tossed out... I wouldn't buy the Adv. Edition, unless the school was shoving it down my throat... Not that this is bad, but I think that there are WAY WAY WAY better books on the subject of Trz. Complexes and Mechanisms (Spessard comes to mind in the fantastic "Organometallic Chemistry"). It is undeniable that FA Cotton can really write well and that the man is a genius on the subject, hell the guy lived through the glory years of Inorganic, but the book never really shows people what really happens mechanistically in the book... Everything is presented in an encyclopedic fashion, which sometimes makes things ambiguous... I think that this is a landmark of a book, but one that is really a first reference on a particular subject...



4. I had the first edition of this book as a student and used it my first years teaching inorganic chemistry before I tried other books. The reason I left this text to try others is that there is just so much information here and not the best organization for the order in which I teach inorganic. However, that being said, I am now returning to this classic from Cotton, Wilkinson & Gaus. The main reason being I had fewer student complaints about the text when I used this book vs. the others. As other reviewers mentioned, the text is encyclopedic! And you end up jumping around to find what you want; however, Cotton et al. has the most complete volume for the undergraduate & beginning graduate course, so that you can pick & choose what you want to cover without much problem. For those with a descriptive bent, there are many descriptive chemistry chapters. For others who have a bit more physical inorganic bent, there is good coverage of those topics. I've used texts on both ends of the spectrum, and I found they only pleased a small portion of the students, while others struggled. This book has everything you want in a beginning course, and more (!) while being flexible enough that you can design your own course by picking chapters to cover. Finally, for the student, it is an excellent reference to keep for the future.



5. I had this book for Inorganic I at Northern Illinois University.
   
   While it did a good job of describing the chemistry of the various groups, it did a poor job of systematizing reactions (such as classifying them as Lewis Acid/Base or Hard Acid/Base reactions.
   
   It had a good explanation of VSEPR but totally botched MO theory.
   
   A decent text. I hope better ones exist.

1 comments about Biological Inorganic Chemistry: Structure and Reactivity.

1. I get sick of hearing about chemical evolution as if it is the only way life can exist, they never point out the extreme unlikelyhood of the theory, or even that it is a theory. I wouldn't complain since most science texts that venture a guess about origins yields similar speculation, but this book really beats you over the head with it.
   Otherwise, the compilation of authors is great, and the scope of the text is very applicable once you get to actual data that can be measured.

4 comments about Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory : A Programmed Introduction to Chemical Applications, 2nd Edition.

1. Cotton's(or Bishop's or like that...) book on group theory is too wonderful for me to grade. But, you may agree with me, in that it really takes times! You must read those books to understand the internal structure of group theory, but if you have exam tomorrow, Vincent's will be an emergency measure. Just follow him about 5 hours. Then you can solve some crucial spectroscopy problems, make MO's, and so third. But don't forget to check the books of details. This book is just for an emergency measure. But truly great enough for that.



2. If you don't have the math background it often takes to penetrate Cotton, this book could be the answer. For learning the quick and dirty basics of the use of group theory for molecules, this is the book. The only problems are its sparseness and the high price for a 156 page book. Excellent for self-teaching, though.



3. The text does a good job of covering the subject material. It is not so advanced as to be difficult to master symmetry, matrices, and applications to vibrational spectra. The book is designed as a programme. The reader follows along and is interrupted to test his/her ability. After successful mastering of topics, the reader goes on, but if the reader does not answer the practice questions well enough, there is a guide to do more review. This is a great intro text for undergraduates, or as a reference for graduate students studying in the Inorganic field.
   The text also uses great examples and has good step by step instructions. The reader can get up to speed on most of the subject material within one weekend. It is also not necessary to read the book cover to cover to get useful learning out of the text. It has a good ability to modulate the different aspects of the different subjects. Overall, worth the money.



4. I bought this book because it is advised from one of my classmates of Transition metal chemistry.
   If you need to learn molecular symmetry, this book is very good. It teachs in a logical order. The only not good part may be its size. I prefer bigger books so you can easily bend. So you should be polite to this book when reading.
   It is also expensive for its size but if you need to learn the molecular symmetry and/or group theory, this book is strongly recommended :)
   I hope this review helps.
   Happy wishes