Customer Reviews

Modern Physical Organic Chemistry

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Phys. Org. Chem. has always been one of my favorite subjects. As I continued to study chemistry during high school, college and grad school, I began to realise that phys org chem represents not so much a separate field as a philosophy and approach; to treat chemical and biological systems from the perspective of structure, conformation, and reactivity which are after all the most fundamental aspects of any such system. I realized that phys org chem is a truly interdisciplinary framework, and any one who has a solid background in it can be a good computational chemist, synthetic organic chemist, and/or bioorganic/biochemist.

Unfortunately, all the classic phys org books until now have been of the 'pure' kind, focusing on mechanism and reactivity, but not discussing the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, especially for biological systems and materials. The wait is over: Modern Physical Organic Chemistry by Dennis Dougherty and Eric Anslyn has completely and satisfactorily reinvented the phys org chem textbook. Now one can look to a wholesome treatment of phys org as a multidisciplinary, fundamental, and exciting approach to both chemistry and biology. The book is worth its price, and covers the gamut of topics, including basic ones like mechanisms and bonding, but also is interspersed with lots of boxes and discussions explaining the applications of basic phys org concepts to host guest systems, proteins and nucleic acids, strained molecules, and materials science. Fantastic reference. It should make you a well-rounded chemist, which is a requirement in today's era of interdisciplinary and collaborative research.

The book by Anslyn and Daugherty is terrific! I recommend it enthusiastically. It fills a large void in the modern day curriculum, and does so brilliantly. I am grateful to the authors for having done so.

Impressively, the text is sophisticated yet readable, both for those of us who have
studied organic chemistry for many years, and most importantly, for students. I've
spoken with a number of students who echo this sentiment. Furthermore, the text is
thoroughly enjoyable to read and is full of wonderful insights. There are very few
chemistry books I've read where I was anxious to see what was coming next. Anslyn and Dougherty's book is one of them.

It is clear that the authors have taken a great deal of care to express their thoughts
carefully, clearly, and concisely. In addition, they have expertly communicated the
interconnections between physical organic chemistry and all other phases of chemistry, including bioorganic and materials chemistry, and have shown that the tools of the physical organic chemist permeate each of the contemporary sub-disciplines.

The publishers, too, are to be congratulated for taking the time and exercising the
care needed to put together a beautifully formatted rendering of the ideas expressed by the authors. In addition, the binding is strong, well constructed, and gives every indication that it will hold up over many years of repeated use.
"Modern Physical Organic Chemistry" is an important and prized addition to my library. I am certain that it will find its place as one of the most important books in the field that has ever been written. Enjoy!

Dan Little

As a recent grad of an org chem graduate program who had to suffer through the nearly 20 year old text "Mechanism and Theory in Organic Chemistry" by Lowry and Richardson, this book by Anslyn and Dougherty is a fabulous update that is easy to read and great asset to any chemistry student. I agree with the other reviewers that the problem sets are challenging, the text is clearly written, and the material relates well back to current research issues. If you are a graduate student considering getting another reference to help you through your organic chemistry graduate program, get this book before you try "Advanced Organic Chemistry: Structure and Mechanisms" by Carey and Sundberg. I expect that "Modern Physcial Organic Chemistry" will become a staple to most chemist's shelves similar to that of a CRC Handbook or "Advanced Organic Chemistry" by March.

This book is definitely a must have for any serious organic student. It is a thorough and comprehensive work encompassing all of physical organic chemistry. It is a welcome text in a field that has long needed a book just like this. I have been waiting with bated breath for its release and it is as scholarly, easy to read, and well organized as I had hoped. It is also extremely well priced for what you get (a very thick book filled with a huge amount of information!). I'm teaching graduate physical organic this fall and it's the first book I go to as a reference when I have a question; I intend to adopt it for the course next year.

Anslyn and Dougherty's is arguably the single most useful text, on any subject, available to chemists today. Although physical organic chemistry could easily be viewed as a narrow, arcane subject, these authors demonstrate that this is far from the truth. Anslyn and Dougherty have done a marvelous job of presenting a truly unbelievable amount of material in a way that is not only approachable, but also quite detailed and comprehensive. It is often said that the more accessible texts are a mile wide and an inch deep. This text is a mile wide and a mile deep (not entirely surprising, considering it is also arguably the bulkiest text available to chemists today!). If you can think of it, you can probably find it in the index. I would add that this text has a fantastic, 20-page (!) index, something many of the older texts ought to take a lesson from.

The best texts, in any discipline, do not teach anything outside of a practical context. Anslyn and Dougherty present a truly astonishing array of "Connections" boxes, one on almost every page, which explicate real examples from the literature of the section's principles being applied. The reader whose interest is piqued by a particular section will thus find several excellent starting places in the primary literature for further study. As many other reviewers have noted, this is a modern text that stresses interdisciplinary connections. As an example, the Felkin-Anh model of nucleophilic addition to carbonyls is presented as a practical example of the Curtin-Hammett principle. Although this connection may seem obvious to the initiated, it is not the kind of thing that the majority of texts (let alone professors!) emphasize. Nevertheless, discovering these connections is the only way a student will ever begin to think critically about a subject. Anslyn and Dougherty put students on the right track.

What is most remarkable, however, is that this text could easily (and willingly!) be read by motivated undergraduates. The first chapter is an outstanding summary of the theory of chemical bonding, a subject whose fundamental importance cannot be overstressed. This chapter, the third chapter on solutions and non-covalent binding forces, the fifth on acids and bases, and several others, would each be worth the price of the book alone. I would seriously recommend that motivated undergraduates attempt to read through as much as possible of this text. It's lucid, concise, and genuinely a joy to read. If you only read one textbook all the way through in your young career, make this one it.

I should mention that the negative reviewer speaks the truth about this book's binding. I don't think I have ever seen such a flimsy binding on such a large textbook, but I suppose it keeps the cost under control. With new copies floating around for $100, this book really is a steal. Mine is still holding up just fine, but I am also very kind to my books. The way some people treat theirs, I would be very concerned about it falling apart.

I have been a professional chemist for more than 30 years. This book is probably the best on physical organic chemistry that I have ever come across. The book is over 1000 pages in length. I read the book from cover to cover. There is not a single chapter that is boring. The book covers a wide range of topics in physical organic chemistry. These topics include molecular structures, stereochemistry, conformational analysis, molecular recognition and supramolecular chemistry, acid and base chemistry, thermodynamics, kinetics and mechanism, organometallic chemistry, polymers, organic electronic theory, pericyclic reactions, photochemistry and organic materials. The treatment of each topics is well beyond elementary level. It is the intent of the authors that the book will be able to provide the necessary background for reading current research literature. Excercises are provided at the end of each chapter. The problems in the Excercises Section are interesting and challenging. I strongly encourage any graduate student to attempt these problems. Many interesting examples are given throughout each chapter. To illustrate, here is an interesting example given in the chapter of "Advanced Concepts in Electronic Structural Theory". Using the simple Huckel molecular orbital analysis, the two molecules cyclobutadiene (CBD) and trimethylenemethane (TMM) are known to have the same molecular orbital pattern for their pi electrons. In other words, these two molecules have one bonding orbital, two degenerate non-bonding orbitals and one anti-bonding orbital. Both are 4-electron systems. We therefore expect that there will be two unpaired parallel spin electrons in the degenerate non-bonding orbitals. Both molecules would have a triplet ground state. However, more advanced analysis shows that the spin preferences of the two systems are different. CBD is expected to exist as a singlet ground state while TMM is expected to exist as a triplet state. The authors provide an extremely clear explanation for such an analysis. In the case of CBD, the two non-bonding orbitals are disjoint. Two molecular orbitals are said to be disjoint when there are no atoms in common in their LCAO's. Consequently, the exchange integral of the two electrons in the two non-bonding orbitals are zero. When electron correlation is incorporated into the analysis, CBD is found have a singlet ground state with a rectangular structure, instead of a perfect square, of alternate double and single bond. This is sometimes known as pseudo Jahn-Teller distortion. In the case of TMM, the non-bonding orbitals are non-disjoint. The exchange integral consequently is non-zero and a triplet ground state is preferred. This concept of spin preference is used to explain one of the strategies used in the synthesis of magnetic organic material. Examples of applications of physical organic chemistry principles to biological systems and technologies (such as liquid crystal) are also found throughout the book.

Beyond any doubts, this book is going to be the standard text for graduate students in organic chemistry for many years to come. If after reading this book and your interest in physical organic chemistry is not aroused, I do not believe that I will be able to find you a more interesting book on physical organic chemistry. The only criticism that I want to make is that I wish the authors would cover more on density functional theory. This part of theoretical chemistry is fast becoming more and more popular in current research. I also hope that the authors will update the book frequently.

I completed my first semester of Physical Organic chemistry using this textbook and I am pleased beyond words. The book is very well written, yet sophisticated enough to help advance new graduate students like myself to the level that our Professors understand concepts at. The problems at the end of the chapter are very useful and the answer guide (sold seperately) explains them quite well.

The book is also binded very solidly. The other people in my research group keep this text on their lab bookshelfs for reference and I have no doubt that I will do the same.

For a text book this is very easy to read, and the explinations are both original and helpful. It also covers all of the topics and more in physical organic chemitry a must have for organic graduate students.

This book by Anslyn and Dougherty fills a niche by providing contemporary treatment of fundamentals of organic chemsitry. The book is well-written, has excellent problem sets, and above all, does a great job of linking mechanistic concepts in organic chemistry to contemporary research problems. This book will be a great resource for advanced students and teachers of organic chemistry.

This is the book that made me a chemist.

I used this book in the undergraduate class taught by one of the authors. It's a very clear, easy-to-follow text, taking the abstract concepts of physical chemistry and applying them in a qualitative sense to organic chemical bonding. Using molecular orbital theory, it builds up an intuitive sense of how orbitals define the structure and reactivity of molecules.

This is such and invaluable topic, and the book is so clearly written, that I ended up reading the whole thing, even though only about half the book was assigned reading. I felt like every paragraph I read taught me something new about the way reactions work. This is one of the few textbooks from my time as an undergraduate which is comprehensive enough and important enough to keep on my shelf through my entire career as an academic researcher.