Product Description

This text integrates chemical principles and applications with descriptive chemistry. It emphasises the relationship between macroscopic observations of chemical and physical changes, the symbols used to describe them, and the way those changes are viewed at the atomic and molecular level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #933846 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1129 pages

Customer Reviews

expensive looking textbook
I recently purchased the fourth edition of this book very cheaply from an Amazon seller.

The book is very expensively produced in hardback with many full colour illustrations and photographs. It is also enormous. The first few chapters are very simple and assume that the reader knows next to nothing about chemistry. Many of these topics would be studied in a GCSE double Science or Chemistry course.

The calculations to be found in the book are very detailed. If anything there are more steps and detail than you would normally include if you are doing the calculations yourself. It appears that the authors are including more detail than is necessary for those students who find the calculations difficult.

A previous reviewer complains that the book is difficult to read and that the calculations and notation are confusing. This is not the case. Admittedly there are some references to American units and American spelling (e.g. Liter instead of Litre), but these are easy to get use to.

Later chapters cover more advanced material to be studied at A'level and beyond. I would consider this to be a most suitable book to use in a first year at university as it covers a wide range of material and takes nothing for granted. From my memories of studying Chemistry - the first year at University involves a lot of revision of A-level material.

The book is what it says, an introductory book on chemistry.

Dissapointingly hard to read
Being a student, I was given a list of books to buy in my first week at university. I had no previous experience of what a "good university textbook" was. It seems that this book consistently uses a combination of out-of-date principles and notations, and often confuses the issue. The book seems to be directed towards sales in America, and features uncommon methods of working out formulae to students in England. I would only recommend this book to American people studying Chemistry.

There are so many other introductory degree books which are a million times better!