Discount Price: $183.95
Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 541
EAN num: 9780534266585
ISBN number: 0534266584
Label: Brooks Cole
Manufacturer: Brooks Cole
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 888
Printing Date: August 20, 2002
Publishing house: Brooks Cole
Sale Popularity Level: 210489
Studio: Brooks Cole
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Intended for the year long, calculus-based physical chemistry course for science and engineering majors, PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY follows a traditional organization while concentrating on core topics. The text does not cover some higher level topics—for example, photochemistry, molecular beams, thermal physics, and polymers— found in some textbooks, and rarely covered in the undergraduate physical chemistry course, but more fully explains the essential elements of the discipline. Written by a dedicated chemical educator and researcher, this text is intended for those students who are trying to learn physical chemistry—a book that works as a textbook and not as an encyclopedia. Where appropriate, there is some focus on mathematical manipulations, providing students with a review of calculus applications as applied to physical chemistry.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
I suppose if I were only a chemistry student, I'd have a higher opinion of this book. But on the whole, being both a physics and chemistry student, I can't really rate it highly.
The problem with the book is that its mathematics is very often wrong. Well, I suppose wrong isn't the correct word. It would be better too say that the mathematics are very often suspect, and appear very wrong. However, upon trying to work it out yourself you discover that to save the poor chemists the trouble of looking at an integral, the book will often simply omit them. This is problematic for those of us who actually like math, or at least appreciate its applications to science.
The other problem with this book is that its explanations are frequently overly wordy. Where 5 lines of math would do, 3 paragraphs are inserted often making you wish they'd just go ahead and do the math instead of having to work through the qualitative explanations contained within.
On the whole, not a bad book, but I have to imagine that there are better alternatives.
Rated by buyers 
-
The book is excellent. It would suffice all the needs to form a good foundation in physical chemistry taught in undergraduate level. However, I felt the problems to be difficult. So I have obtained the complete manual (look my listings for sale). Goodluck with your pchem.
Rated by buyers -
I received my book as quickly as can be expected for media mail and the book was in perfect condition! I bought the book for half of what it would cost if it were new.
Rated by buyers -
At very first glance David Ball's text is excellent and because of this I used it to teach my physical chemistry course last year. It is nicely written and easy to read. As with any very first edition there are numerous typos - but these are posted on Ball's web page as they are found. The basic thermodynamics and quantum mechanics sections are quite good and I especially like the group theory section - but the statistical mechanics, ESR, and NMR sections are quite poor in my opionion and contain numerous errors (not typos) which I discovered only in teaching these topics in the end of the second semester course. I am currently looking for a new text but I eagerly await a second edition in which these errors will be fixed. This book has a lot of potential and for basic thermodynamics and quantum mechanics it is very good.
Rated by buyers -
If you are forced to use Atkins for Physical Chemistry, then do yourself the favor of buying this book. This is by far the best P. Chem. book that I have ever seen. The concepts are clear without watering down the subject. I love this book so much now that P. Chem. finally makes sense to me. I especially love the section on Quantum Mechanics. I use this book primarily as the textbook for my class because it follows closely the material outlined in Atkins stupid, pedantic book.
Find other books like this one:
