Customer Reviews

Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory : A Programmed Introduction to Chemical Applications, 2nd Edition

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4 star:		(6)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you don't have the math background it often takes to penetrate Cotton, this book could be the answer. For learning the quick and dirty basics of the use of group theory for molecules, this is the book. The only problems are its sparseness and the high price for a 156 page book. Excellent for self-teaching, though.

I bought this book because it is advised from one of my classmates of Transition metal chemistry.
If you need to learn molecular symmetry, this book is very good. It teachs in a logical order. The only not good part may be its size. I prefer bigger books so you can easily bend. So you should be polite to this book when reading.
It is also expensive for its size but if you need to learn the molecular symmetry and/or group theory, this book is strongly recommended :)
I hope this review helps.
Happy wishes

Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory is a nice guide for students to evaluate symmetry of molecules and their implications on molecular vibrations. It's structure in programmes and it's approach are so helpful.

The text does a good job of covering the subject material. It is not so advanced as to be difficult to master symmetry, matrices, and applications to vibrational spectra. The book is designed as a programme. The reader follows along and is interrupted to test his/her ability. After successful mastering of topics, the reader goes on, but if the reader does not answer the practice questions well enough, there is a guide to do more review. This is a great intro text for undergraduates, or as a reference for graduate students studying in the Inorganic field.
The text also uses great examples and has good step by step instructions. The reader can get up to speed on most of the subject material within one weekend. It is also not necessary to read the book cover to cover to get useful learning out of the text. It has a good ability to modulate the different aspects of the different subjects. Overall, worth the money.

I bought this book with no prior knowledge of molecular symmetry nor the mathematics of group theory. With only the idea of stereochemistry and matrix algebra, I was hoping that this book would help pave the way for my inorganic chemistry course over the summer.

The first few pages (about 6-10 pages in) started out quite nicely, you get a comfortable feel for the author and his teaching style- almost like a parent holding your hand and guiding you gently through the basic elements of symmetry. Aside from a few vaguely conveyed ideas (improper rotation was not very clear), you start to get a hang of the idea and feel comfortable with the author and his pedagogy. BUT..... once you reach the 2nd chapter about point groups, it's as though the author left you in the middle of a busy high-way, blindfolded, with little to no explanation why such a point group contains such elements, etc. and how, or even why he grouped it such a way! All the new concepts in chapter 2 were just thrown at you as though you are the master of molecular symmetry. This would be alright if the book haven't been a step-by-step guide to Molecular symmetry and Group Theory, so basically when I got stuck with Chapter 2, I had NO clue what chapter 3 was talking about and because I don't know chapter 3, I could forget about Chapter 4, and so on...

Unfortunate! That's one word I want to convey about this book. It's unfortunate that the author just got tired of explaining better after chapter 1, and assumed that everyone is the master of molecular symmetry after an excellent introduction. It got my hopes up and let it down as soon as I got to chapter 2. If this is the "easiest" way to learn molecular symmetry, I don't know how people learn it in the past. I give this 1 star because that's how many chapters I got to understand in this book. Bottom line is, this book is like a movie with a great trailer- and after watching the movie for the first ten minutes, you realize it has nothing to do with what the trailer is about- that's how you'll feel when you get to chapter 2....trust me.

Cotton's(or Bishop's or like that...) book on group theory is too wonderful for me to grade. But, you may agree with me, in that it really takes times! You must read those books to understand the internal structure of group theory, but if you have exam tomorrow, Vincent's will be an emergency measure. Just follow him about 5 hours. Then you can solve some crucial spectroscopy problems, make MO's, and so third. But don't forget to check the books of details. This book is just for an emergency measure. But truly great enough for that.

As an average chemistry student at an American University. I have to say this has been one of my favorite supplemental text books ever for the subject of Inorganic Chemistry. It condenses the information down into smaller sections with easy to understand sections broken up by practice problems.

I would not say this is the only necessary text for the subject but to sit along side your main Inorganic text book I would say this is a very useful book to have to read. The exercises are easy to understand and do. When you get stuck the book is short enough to re-read sections and clear up any confusion.

However for a more in depth understanding I would look elsewhere.