Product Description

This student-friendly text has been written to provide a course in chemical literacy. Providing complete yet concise coverage of core topics, it starts students from scratch and assumes only a minimal experience of mathematics and science. The third edition has been fully updated, and includes a new chapter on Forensic Chemistry. It now has a second colour throughout to enhance its many features including diagrams, examples and exercises, and to highlight important points. The third edition also includes direct references in the text to the companion website which accompanies this book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12343 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Dr R J Martin, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Birmingham
'Love at first sight: this really is a terrific book with bags of appeal...'

Dr David Kelly, Department of Chemistry, Cardiff University
'This book covers an extraordinary range of topics, punctuated with some delightful nuggets of information.'

Dr R J Martin, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Birmingham
'Love at first sight: this really is a terrific book with bags of appeal particularly for students without an A-Level in chemistry and who have developed a mental block about all things chemical.'

Customer Reviews

Student friendly. Well thought out. For learners not teacher
I have been training as a paramedic and I needed a basic chemistry book for some sections of the syllabus. I was very pleased to find this book: it seems designed for people like me rather than super students of chemistry. There are plenty of problems which test you before you move on to the next text. Other books have coloured photos, but this one did the job for me.

Excellet primer for occasional chemists
I studied bits n pieces of chemistry at University as part of my Electronics Engineering course. I always wanted a Chemistry reference similar to my well thumbed "University Physics" book and this fits the bill perfectly. If a Chemical topic comes up and I need a reminder of what it was about I can just look it up here. If I come across a new topic(like forensics) I can read about it here and gain a level of understanding that I feel comfortable with. If I need more I can look up more specialised texts on the internet and generally follow them, having read this first.

It picks up with GCSE level Chemistry and quickly covers the basics of atoms, molecules, structures etc and then diverges into a good coverage of most branches of Chemistry - certainly all the ones I need, including Organic, Nuclear, Forensic and some very basic Biochemistry. The appendices are useful and having answers to all exercises is good for a book used outside a course curriculum. I dropped one star because some areas are slightly confused (eg. quantum numbers are there because quantization occurs in nature, not the other way around!)

I use it to dip into and so far it has answered all my questions at exactly the right level of detail. I only wish I'd had it while at University!

God send to those who struggle with chemistry
This book was recommended to me by a university lecturer (I was dubious at first as the authors also work at my uni). It's a great book for A'Level or Foundation degree level students as the topics covered are fairly basic but it explains everything very clearly. Made my first year much easier as I was always dipping into this book. The questions do help with revision too.