Customer Reviews

Intermolecular and Surface Forces, Second Edition: With Applications to Colloidal and Biological Systems (Colloid Science)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you want to learn about the title subject, this is a great intro book. And it's probably the most enjoyable theory book you are likely to own, if you purchase it.

I had the honor of taking a class from the author himself, based upon this text. 10 years later, I still refer to this text in my industrial career. It is comprehensive with regards to the fundamentals... Compared to others that focus more on art and observations, you are presented with the underlying physics, allowing you to deal with entirely novel situations. Compared to classical physics presentations, you recieve things in concise and logical terms without excessive theory or mathematical derivation. Its crowning achievement is its ability to make the physics accessible to graduate and advanced undergraduate chemists or biologists, paving the way for deeper interdisciplinary achievement.

I used this book extensively while writing up my PhD in Materials Science for calculating interparticle forces in colloidal systems.

It's very well written and thorough in all aspects of the subject matter. And yet even though the subject itself is rather dry, the book is not a difficult read, unlike some other theoretical textbooks that I have.

The improvements to the third edition, over the second, are well worth the more than a decade of waiting. Nothing in the content is worse, and some additions are great.

However, the product itself--the physical book--is disappointing. Apparently concerned that an e-book savvy public will no longer pay the price required to publish a decent book, the publishers have opted to cut corners in all of the worst ways. To bring the price down into whatever the range is that was indicated by the exhaustive research of their marketing department (which seems to have consisted of a bunch of junior-year unpaid interns sitting around trying to figure out how much THEY might spring for a textbook) the modest geniuses at academic press have opted to print on uncoated (although recycled) stock. This has the twin disadvantages of poor archival quality, and poor printing quality. To compensate for the latter, the text must be printed in larger font, since teeny-weeny letters will smear together on the uncoated stock. The result is a book that is much to large for its content. It is unwieldy, unattractive, and the pages feel both rough to the touch, and soft enough to tear easily. An added disadvantage is that more pages means the places you want to turn to in the book are farther apart, meaning that you have to handle the unattractive and flimsy pages more than you want to. I would not be surprised if there is a surreptitious effort to promote this kind of bad-feeling book to herd the general public toward the Kindle(R).

Intermolecular and Surface Forces by Israelachvili is a fantastic work. It is certainly the best on the subject. The material is presented in a very logical sequence. There are two important aspects to the success of this book. First it is a great reference to the forces of micro and nano scales; all forces. Secondly it includes key explanations to matters that are generally difficult to understand, at least in other books on the subject. However, an area for potential improvement would be to provide the reader with more description and explanations of the nature of these forces without the reference to their mathematical representations. Nature is not based on mathematics, it supersedes it. Nevertheless the book is the best in the field and is an essential tool for all research in the micro and nano scales. It does include many comments on the nature of the intermolecular forces but not sufficient.

This text is perfect for the reader who can read graphs and diagrams. A picture is worth a thousand words and so are graphs and diagrams. This text is chock full of graphs with all the information that you may need for an undergraduate or graduate course. I love this book. Its an excellent reference.

I can't possibly discuss most of my topics without referring to this book. I did many years of research with this book near by. It explains much. During two of my papers, one for the winter olympics, and another on Hydrogen Bonding, I used this book extensively. My co-author who was non-technical also enjoyed it, following a laymen Feynman like interpretation.

The book was brand new and the shipping was fast.
Thank you for an easy transaction.

Was used for "intermolecular forces" class... Advanced, and I think, it could be useful for people who work with AFM.

The above "reviewer" needs to learn the English language! What the hell is that guy trying to tell us? I'm glad the book is useful to the outdoors.

I have not read too far into the book, but it seems to be fairly well written.