General Chemistry for Engineers (Revised printing of Prelimary edition) (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

James Glanville (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0131449559 | ISBN-13: 978-0131449558 | Edition: 2

For one-semester courses in General Chemistry for civil, mechanical, electrical and engineering students. Emphasizing problem-solving and engineering approximation, this chemistry text provides engineering students with an overview of the chemistry relevant to their lives and professional careers. Throughout the book, Internet key word searching and graphing exercises take advantage of students' existing computer skills and encourage them to acquire new ones in designing, preparing, and interpreting graphs. This textbook also offers a strong focus on the applications of chemistry to engineering in both the text and extensive problem sets.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Emphasizing problem-solving and engineering approximation, this chemistry book provides engineers with an understanding of the entities (atoms, molecules, and ions) that are relevant to their lives and professional careers. Throughout the book, internet key word searching and graphing exercises take advantage of users' existing computer skills and encourages them to acquire new ones in designing, preparing, and interpreting graphs. Chapter topics cover atoms, elements, and measurements; nuclides, molecules, and ions; chemical reaction and stoichiometry; gases; quantum mechanics, and the periodic table; chemical bonding and chemical structure; chemical energy and the first law of thermodynamics; the second law of thermodynamics and chemical equilibrium; gas and solution equilibria; liquids and their mixtures; solids; phase diagrams and solutions; the periodic table and redox chemistry; electrochemistry; and rate processes. For engineers preparing for the professional certification exam. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A decent respect for the opinions of humankind demands that an author give some accounting of himself. Why this book? The answer is straightforward: 1. Because engineering colleagues asked for a one-semester replacement course for the two-semester course sequence that their students had traditionally taken, and 2. Because no suitable book existed. This book began when I sat down with my engineering colleagues, asking what are the essential, bedrock materials, and then writing a curriculum to match it. The book was born as a series of web-based chapters in the Fall of 1998, grew to a self-published volume in the Fall of 1999, and was heavily revised to a preliminary edition for Fall 2000 and heavily revised again with many added exercises to become this second preliminary edition for Fall 2002.

ABET describes itself this way: "The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is primarily responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and certifying the quality of engineering, engineering technology, and engineering-related education in colleges and universities in the United States." Here's how ABET defines engineering: "Engineering is the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind." Engineers are the people who make things with stuff, and chemists make the stuff.

The theme of the book is simple: All the stuff that engineers use and apply is composed of chemical entities (atoms, molecules, and ions). The bulk properties of .matter derive from those entities and the forces among them. To understand chemistry is to understand stuff. The book is organized into five parts, broadly going from the more simple to the more complex.

Part 1. Chemical Fundamentals: Atoms (including nuclides and isotopes), molecules and ions, moles and stoichiometry, and units and measurements.

Part 2. The Nature of Chemical Bonding: Gases and intermolecular forces. Electrons in atoms and chemical bonding.

Part 3. Chemical Thermodynamics and Chemical Equilibrium. Characterization of the properties of chemical entities and the nature of a chemical reaction process.

Part 4. Properties of Matter: Properties of liquids and liquid mixtures, solids and the basics of materials science. Relationship among the states of aggregation of matter.

Part 5. Applied Chemistry. Descriptive chemistry and the periodic table. The nature of redox chemistry and electrochemistry. Rate processes and the aging of materials.

Throughout the book I have stressed problem solving and engineering approximation. The students in my classroom want to know why the material I am presenting is relevant to their lives and to their professional careers. So I try to answer those questions as we go along, often and in various ways. Experimental uncertainty is not something to be discussed in Chapter 1 and then dropped. It is an ongoing topic and one with very distinguished roots in engineering, as I point out in Appendix B.

Likewise, throughout the book I have tried to use punctiliously what IUPAC calls the algebra-of-quantities. Experimental uncertainty and the algebra-of-quantities are given extensive treatment in the Solutions Manual, which I wrote as an integral part of writing the text, and not as an afterthought. (To order this for yourselves or your students, please contact your Prentice-Hall representative and ask about ISBN 0-13-0325147).

Designing, preparing, and interpreting graphs remains an important part of science and engineering. Most of the graphs in the text were prepared by the author, and graphing exercises are included to encourage the student to do likewise.

Engineering students are computer literate and internet savvy. I have learned a lot from them. To take advantage of their skill I introduced internet searching as a key component of the book. Throughout the book you'll find entries such as *kws +topic + "another topic". The initials "kws" stand for "key word search." The symbol *kws suggests you do an internet search with your favorite search engine. The internet is a gigantic, dynamic, rapidly accessible encyclopedia. Many times in the course of preparing material I have been able to find needed information quickly and efficiently by using the internet. I am convinced that learning how to search the internet effectively is an important 21st-century skill that, once learned, becomes invaluable.

Obviously, there can be no complete agreement on either the content or the order of presentation for a course so new. However, I have been gratified by the response of my reviewers, several of whom told me that I have independently arrived at the sequence they themselves concluded was appropriate for a one-semester general chemistry course for engineers. But authors notwithstanding, the best teaching takes place when the instructor does it her or his way and is deeply involved in developing and organizing the course. A wise editor once wrote: "Kinetics before or after equilibrium? This point always comes up. It can be argued both ways. Remember the folks who will swap the two around and see if you can't engineer the discussion to make such a swap less unruly." In writing and revising material I've tried to keep that advice firmly in mind.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 744 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 2 edition (September 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131449559
• ISBN-13: 978-0131449558
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,700,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excelent, A+ service and book, November 2, 2010

By 

Riley L. Waid (WARWICK, RI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: General Chemistry for Engineers (Second Preliminary Edition) (Paperback)

Excelent price, excelent delivery, A+ service and book.

Will do business with them anytime.

RW

4.0 out of 5 stars A Good Book Overall, June 27, 2005

By 

Vincent B. Orveaux "vborveaux" (Roanoke, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: General Chemistry for Engineers (Revised printing of Prelimary edition) (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

I thought this book was very good overall. I took Glanville's class and recognized early on that it was going to be difficult to combine two semesters of freshman chemistry into one. The book provided numerous helpful examples to help understand the materials presented and the chapters were logically organized. While there were a number of "boos" in the book as Glanville called them, I thought the writing style and examples were more helpful than most texts I used my first year at Virginia Tech.

1.0 out of 5 stars Complete waste of paper, time, and money, December 29, 2003

By 

Maikool (Blacksburg, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: General Chemistry for Engineers (Second Preliminary Edition) (Paperback)

As a engineering student at Virginia Tech, I was very disappointed in this text which was supposed to be "next generation" chemistry for engineers. The book is full of errors, some of which are posted on Dr. Glanville's (the author and my professor) website (http://www.chemistry.vt.edu/chem-dept/glanville/Boofile.pdf). There are many more errors that were pointed out during the semester by students, but for some reason not yet part of the "boofile."

The text is more qualitative than quantitative in nature and has left me feeling like I have wasted my time and money on it. No university professor in his or her right mind would adopt this text. There is also a site http://www.ratevtteachers.com from which you can do a search on 'Glanville' to see what other students think or thought of his text.