Customer Reviews

Basic Chemical Thermodynamics (Fifth Edition)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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I borrowed the 4th edition of this book from the library, so it may not be applied for this 5th edition.
It covers wide range of basics of thermodynamics, requires readers only a entry-level chemistry knowledge, and contains only less than 200 pages, which makes people feel easier to read through.
Actually, chapters up to 3 are easy to follow and digest, but the following chapters made my eyes rolled over and over again.
The explanation is too short and the algebra employed are sloppy and lame.
Making things even worse, there are many typos, which I hope fixed in 5th.
It would be good for people who always doubt about things like me to deepen the knowledge, looking up the Internet, other books, or whatever, but not good for those who tend to believe things without doubt.
I found the thermodynamics written by Enrico Fermi is much better for the starters, even though it employs a little bit old way to express things like thermodynamic potential for the Gibbs free energy and the free energy for the Helmholtz free energy.

The subject is treated at a basic level, but provides a good overview for a reader that has little prior experience with the subject. This would be a great supplement to the typical first-year general chemistry text, and would set the stage for further work in more formal courses.