Product Description

A description of the key developments in the molecular sciences and those likely to happen in the future. These include the many remarkable discoveries made in the life sciences, and the huge variety of technological applications of chemistry: liquid crystals, batteries, catalysts, plastics and novel electronic materials. The book also explains how chemistry is actually carried out - methods of making and analyzing molecules, calculating their properties and studying how and why chemical reactions occur. Endorsed by Prime Minister Tony Blair and written in accessible language, the work should appeal to anyone who wants to understand the world and ourselves at the molecular level.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52871 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 268 pages

Customer Reviews

Who wrote this thing, already?
Hey, I'm not much of a chemist, so i thought maybe picking this book up would catch me up on 20 or 30 years of chemistry. In some ways, it accomplishes that, although I'm left wondering about the physics that seems to be emphasized, especially in the chapter on chemical reactions. Unfortunately, I don't think this book will be very useful to the general audience that it claims to be aimed at, as explanations are often clearly aimed quite a bit higher, or assume more knowledge than is warranted for the general reader (Then again, I always felt like I never quite related well to chemistry.). Some of the topics are fairly specialized, so that the (necessarily, given the breadth of the book) superficial explanations are at best unsatisfying, sometimes confusing. Nonetheless, for those who manage to force themselves past these difficult sections, it does offer a reasonable overview of a number of cutting-edge chemistry technologies. Seems to be a little bit hastily put together, with some figure legends not quite matching the figures correctly, and the choppy flow sympomatic of team writing and insufficient editing care. It'll teach me to look more skeptically at books for which no one has had the courage to claim individual responsibility for authorship or editorship!