This popular book, now in its 10th edition, is a useful and interesting read for the layperson, as it is colorful, conversational in tone, and easily understandable. Knowledge of chemistry leads to better understanding about the hazards and benefits of this world, enabling better personal decision-making. This comprehensive yet simply written book covers the gamut of chemistry topics, including: drugs, biocides, food additives, fertilizers, fuels, detergents, cosmetics, plastics, toxic wastes, polluted air and water, and dwindling petroleum reserves. By introducing current and timely topics, this book enables the reader to relate chemistry to themselves. For anyone interested in learning about chemistry and its effect upon our everyday lives.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
From the Inside Flap
Chemistry for Changing Times is now in its ninth edition. Times have indeed changed since the first edition appeared in 1972, and the book has changed accordingly. Our knowledge base has expanded enormously since that first edition, yet we have resisted the pressure to increase the size of the book. This has forced us to make some tough choices in deciding what to include and what to leave out. We live in what has been called the "information age." Our main focus, therefore, is not so much on providing information as it is on helping students evaluate that information.
We believe that a chemistry course for students who are not majoring in science should be quite different from the course we offer our science majors. It should present basic chemical concepts with intellectual honesty, but it should not focus on esoteric theories or rigorous mathematics. It should include lots of modern everyday applications. The textbook should be appealing to look at, easy to understand, and interesting to read.
Three-fourths of the legislation considered by the U. S. Congress involves questions having to do with science or technology, yet only rarely does a scientist or engineer enter politics. Most of the people who make important decisions regarding our health and our environment are not trained in science, but it is critical that these decision makers are scientifically literate. A chemistry course for students who are not science majors should emphasize practical applications of chemistry to problems involving such things as environmental pollution, radioactivity, energy sources, and human health. The students who take our liberal arts chemistry courses include future teachers, lawyers, accountants, journalists, and judges. There are probably some future legislators, too. Objectives
Our main objectives in a chemistry course for students who are not majoring in science are as follows:
To attract as many students as possible. If students are not enrolled in the course, we can't teach them. To use topics of current interest to illustrate chemical principles. We want students to appreciate the importance of chemistry in the real world. To relate chemical problems to the everyday lives of our students. Chemical problems seem more significant to students if they can see a personal connection. To instill in students an appreciation for chemistry as an open-ended learning experience. We hope that our students will want to continue learning throughout their lives. To acquaint students with scientific methods. We want students to be able to read about science and technology with some degree of critical judgment. To help students become literate in science. We want our students to develop a comfortable knowledge of science so that they find news articles relating to science interesting rather than intimidating. New Features in the Ninth Edition
In response to suggestions from users and reviewers of the eighth edition, as well as using our own writing and teaching experience, we have thoroughly updated all the text to reflect the latest scientific knowledge. The organization of the 20 chapters remains much the same as in the eighth edition. The major exception lies within Chapters 5 and 6. Changes in Content
Some of the more important changes are as follows:
Chapter 6 was substantially revised and has a new title, "Chemical Accounting: Mass and Volume Relationships." We have concentrated much of the quantitative material in this one chapter. We moved the sections on naming chemical compounds from Chapter 6 to Chapter 5. We moved the kinetic-molecular theory from Chapter 5 to Chapter 6. At the request of several users and reviewers, we have added a new section (Section 6.7) on solutions. This addition includes new worked-out examples, exercises, and end-of-chapter problems. We revised much of the early treatment of acid-base chemistry (Chapter 7), making the Brønsted-Lowry treatment more explicit. We added a discussion of half-reactions in Chapter 7, with new worked-out examples, exercises, and end-of-chapter problems. We added a brief discussion of IUPAC naming in Chapter 9. In Chapter 13 we added a brief subsection, "Calculations of Parts per Billion," including a new worked-out example and end-of-chapter problems. We have added new tables and reorganized others. New tables include Physical Properties, Chemical Properties, Potential Energy, and Kinetic Energy (Chapter 1); Mendeleev's Original Periodic Table (Chapter 2); Types of Radiation, Differences Between Chemical and Nuclear Reactions, and Symbols for Subatomic Particles (Chapter 4). Additions to Pedagogy
The following changes have been made to strengthen and improve the pedagogy in this edition.
We follow worked-out examples by A and B exercises in some cases. The B exercise is intended to be a bit more challenging, often requiring a knowledge of material from earlier in the book. To improve the organization of the text, we use superheads in some chapters. We use voice balloons in problem solving to carefully guide the student through the process and thus improve the pedagogy. Focusing on the importance of providing interesting, relevant applications, we have added several new box features: Cost-Benefit Analysis and Health Care and Body Temperature, Hypothermia, and Hyperthermia (Fever) (Chapter 1); What a Difference an O Makes, and Recycling (Chapter 2); What Makes for Nuclear Stablility? (Chapter 4); Who's Number Is It Anyway? (Chapter 6); Conducting Polymers: Polyacetylene (Chapter 10); Asbestos: Risks and Benefits (Chapter 11); Air Pollution in China, An Air Pollution Episode: London, England, and Wood Smoke (Chapter 12); and Entropy (Chapter 14). We have updated the References and Readings at the end of each chapter. We continue to include Critical Thinking exercises at the end of each chapter. We have chosen several new photographs and produced new diagrams to improve the pedagogy and the visual appeal of the book. Web-Related Activities For this ninth edition, we have added 12 MediaLabs, which are spread throughout the text and placed appropriately after the chapter to which they relate. Examples include: Chapter 9 MediaLab—Fragrances: Stop and Smell the Roses, Chapter 15 MediaLab—Genetic Recombination—Promise or Peril?, and Chapter 18 MediaLab—Keeping Fit or Overexerting? These MediaLabs help tie the chapter topics to current events and use the power of the internet to explore those events. For this ninth edition, a major change is that we have added web references with brief descriptions as margin notes within each chapter. They can be accessed through the Chemistry for Changing Times World Wide Web Center (prenhall/hillkolb/). We have also added interesting Online Projects at the end of each chapter that may be assigned as a collaborative group or individual activity. Use of Color
New color photographs and diagrams have been added. Visual material adds greatly to the general appeal of a textbook. Color diagrams can also be highly instructive, and colorful photographs relating to descriptive chemistry do much to enhance the learning process. Readability
Over the years, students have told us that they have found this textbook easy to read. The language is simple, and the style is conversational. Explanations are clear and easy to understand. The friendly tone of the book has been maintained in this edition. Units of Measurement
The United States continues to cling to the traditional English system for many kinds of measurement even though the metric system has long been used internationally. A modern version of the metric system, the Système International (SI), is now widely used, especially by scientists. So what units should be used in a text for liberal arts students? In presenting chemical principles, we use primarily metric units. In other parts of the book we use those units that the students are most likely to encounter elsewhere in the same context. Chemical Structures
The structures of many complicated molecules are presented in the text, especially in the later chapters. These structures are presented mainly to emphasize that they are actually known and to illustrate the fact that substances with similar properties often have similar structures. Students should not feel that they must learn all these structures, but they should take the time to look at them. We hope that they will come to recognize familiar features in these molecules. Glossary
The Glossary (Appendix B) gives definitions of terms that appear in boldface throughout the text. These terms include all key terms listed at the end of each chapter. Questions and Problems
The end-of-chapter exercises include review questions, a set of matched-pair problems, and suggested projects and online projects. Answers to many review questions and to all the odd-numbered problems are given in Appendix C. Problems are given within some of the chapters, with worked-out examples followed by similar exercises. Answers to all the in-chapter exercises are also given in Appendix C. Re --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the liberal arts texts,
By Craig MACKINNON (Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Chemistry for Changing Times (Hardcover)
There are two people that would be interested in this book - those that are enrolled in a liberal arts chemistry course, and those that are just interested in learning about chemistry. This book suits either type of person admirably.While setting up a liberal arts course in chemistry (i.e., Chemistry for Non-science Majors), we previewed a number of possible texts. This one, in my mind, stood above all the others that I looked at. There are a number of reasons why: 1. The scope - this book covers a vast number of topics, from basic structure of the atom to environmental chemistry to toxins and drugs to combustion and energy. We are designing a survey course, and this spread is ideal. Other texts tended to focus too much, especially on environmental issues (e.g., the ACS's Chemistry in Context). 2. Descriptive, non-mathmatical. Since this course has no prerequisites, not even grade 10 math, we needed a book that minimised mathematics. Other books, such as Kelter/Carr/Scott's Chemistry: World of Choices, was too mathematical for this type of course. 3. The pictures - this book simply looks good. Thus, if you're looking for a text for a liberal arts chemistry course, or if you just want to know more about chemistry and are not mathematically inclined, I would recommend this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good basic chemical handbook,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Chemistry for Changing Times (12th Edition) (Paperback)
Nicely written general chemistry book with many interesting details. Good ideas include self-assesment tests, example problems with solutions, critical thinking excercies after each chapter, summaries and collaborative group projects. Has some flaws however, and the major one is the fact that four last chapters are online only, and require a registration to access. Paying such a sum for a book, I would prefer to get it to hand in whole.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Seems to be missing content,
By Shaun (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Chemistry for Changing Times (12th Edition) (Paperback)
This book has great illustrations and appears to be very complete at first glance, but as you go through the book you will find many places where concepts are introduced but not really explained. This wouldn't be too much of an issue if this book were actually intended for liberal arts students, but it starts to get annoying when the book follows up the poor introduction of a concept with "self assessment" questions on things that were completely glossed over. To make matters worse, some teachers copy questions from the book.
I have found Khan Academy to be a fantastic supplement to this book, as the videos at Khan Academy follow the same sequence as this book and do a great job of filling in the blanks that the authors of this book seem to have left. This isn't the worst chemistry book I've read, but it is far from the best.
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