21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Info's There, But it's Soulless, Rootless & Mathless, January 11, 2007
I took a couple of courses in Chemistry 30 years ago back in high school and then a couple more in college. My son just finished using this book in HIS college Chemistry classes and I thought I'd read through it for grins. I wasn't very impressed. Oh, the information's all there. But, it's presented in the manner of someone having gone through a checklist to see all the Chemistry subjects that should be taught in general Chemistry and then just including them. It's hard to explain, but I think the problem is the lack of historical background in the book. The book has little historical snippets on Chemistry *personages*, but it doesn't follow along the historical *path of discovery* to explain WHY Chemistry is what it is. The end result is that the student is presented with dry, bare facts with no place to hang them in his head.
Another problem is the lack of math in the book. I mean, general Chemistry is not exactly a higher math subject (it's an empirical science, instead). But, as an example, on page 277, in the midst of the Quantum Mechanics section, there's a sidebar explaining:
"The <= sign means that the product (DELTA)x(DELTA)p can be greater than or equal to h/4(PI), but it can never be smaller than h/4(PI)"
(I've substituted the capitalized words for the greek symbols). 277 pages into a Chemistry book and the author is explaining what the "<=" sign is. This assumption of utter mathematical ignorance on the part of the reader continues throughout the book. And yet, a mere 72 pages further on (page 349), the author assumes knowledge of Coulomb's law in an explanation. Coulomb's law implies a class in Physics which means that anyone reading this book should be well versed in basic math.
And, finally, the biggest problem is that there's almost no lab material presented or used. I don't mean just a lack of lab experiments (I initially assumed there was some companion lab manual for this book -- but, if so, there's nothing anywhere in the book that references it). I mean that the author uses almost no hypothetical, lab-based scenarios to illustrate his points. Again, Chemistry is an historically empirical, experimental science. To entirely ignore that in a Chemistry book makes no sense at all.
Personally, this book feels like a book designed for people who have no interest in Chemistry but are forced to take a Chemistry class because of silly academic requirements. The problem with this is that presenting Chemistry as merely a collection of boring facts makes it even harder for such students to get anything out of the subject. And, for anyone who really is interested in the subject, this book could scare them off. Because of this, the best I can rate Chang's "Chemistry" is a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
General look on chemistry., September 3, 2001
The most significant thing about this text book is it's great generality, as a result of wich it can prove to be unsuficient for a deep study but a great help as a first reference. Also it would be interesting to say that Raymond Chang makes a very complete sinthesis throw out the book making it readible by almost anybody. As a result this text book can be most usefull to those beginning any studys on chemistry.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This is a confusing and non-specific college text., January 8, 1999
By A Customer
I use this text in a college preporatory (A.P.) class and find it very confusing. For specific definitions of principles, it is vague and unclear. Clearer definitions would greatly improve this edition.
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