Organic Chemistry [Hardcover]

T. W. Graham Solomons (Author), Craig Fryhle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 10, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0471190950 | ISBN-13: 978-0471190950 | Edition: 7th

On the cover of this book is a Pacific yew tree, found in the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest. The bark of the Pacific yew tree produces Taxol, found to be a highly effective drug against ovarian and breast cancer. Taxol blocks mitosis during eukaryotic cell division. The supply of Taxol from the Pacific yew tree is vanishingly small, however. A single 100-year-old tree provides only about one dose of the drug (roughly 300 mg). For this reason, as well as the spectacular molecular architecture of Taxol, synthetic organic chemists fiercely undertook efforts to synthesize it. Five total syntheses of Taxol have thus far been reported. Now, a combination of isolation of a related metabolite from European yew needles, and synthesis of Taxol from that intermediate, supply the clinical demand. This case clearly demonstrates the importance of synthesis and the use of organic chemistry. It's just one of the many examples used in the text that will spark the interest of students and get them involved in the study of organic chemistry!

Editorial Reviews

Review

Study Guide, Text Bank, Computerized Test Bank, Transparencies and ChemGraphics available. -- The publisher, John Wiley & Sons --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

This revised edition presents reaction mechanisms in the context of real functional group chemistry and emphasizes the biological, environmental and medical applications of organic chemistry. The new edition maintains the same quality and approach that made prior editions so popular. Includes detailed explanations of mechanisms, structure and theory with careful attention given to the use of curved arrows. Features many more examples of organic acid-base reactions and an extended discussion of aromatic compounds. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1344 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 7th edition (August 10, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471190950
• ISBN-13: 978-0471190950
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,766,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Orgo Book Ever, August 9, 2001

By 

Sydney Roberts, lab tech (Berkeley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organic Chemistry, 6th Edition (Hardcover)

Solomons is like a bible to me as a lab tech. I had it for my undergrad course in orgo and found it to be very thorough. It is a good resource, clear and to the point. The mechanisms were very nice. I TAed for orgo afterwards and they used a different book called Jones which was alot more confusing. I was thankful that I had Solomons becasue the Jones book rambles and tells you things that aren't even true after going on for like two pages.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for pre-med students, September 27, 1998

By 

r_a_campbell (Los Angeles, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organic Chemistry, 6th Edition (Hardcover)

After using this book for two quarters of organic chemistry at UCLA I am confident in entering my third quarter using this same book. Not only is it vital in order to understand the basics of organic chemistry it is also a great study tool for the MCAT. Solomons presents the material in a matter fact way that is easy to understand. If you are going to study organics this is the book to have!

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Borderline to desinformation from a present-day perspective., October 17, 2001

By 

Giovani Bassi - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organic Chemistry (Hardcover)

Review by Dr Giovani Bassi, Rome/Torino, Italy. [M.A. Music, B.Sc. Physics, M.Sc. Chemistry, Ph.D. Physical Organic Chemistry (thesis: general theory of synthesis of kinetically stabilized high-energy compounds). Lecturer on graduate-level quantum mechanics, applied maths, enzyme mechanics (my chief research area), relativistic biophysics etc.]

Re: Solomons, "Organic Chemistry", 6th and 7th eds. (I am Italian, sorry about any mistakes.)

Are you a freshman chemistry student? Do you plan to become a researcher in a quantitative and/or theoretical field and/or do you "just" want a reasonably complete understanding of what you are doing all day, regardless of what your profession will be or is already? Then read on!

The present book is a complete clone of the other available textbooks on the subjects; McMurry, Schmid, Volhardt etc. can thus be treated as one single book and you can just pick one at random. (One exception is the text by Whitesell and Fox, which is fabulous in that it is completely oriented around mechanism, which is the perspective used by every professional. However, even that book - like those mentioned here - suffers from being directed at students without any background knowledge of math and science. I am now planning to write a book for Wiley on basic organic chemistry, that assumes knowledge of calculus and physical chemistry. The demand seems to be enormous for such a text, not least since tens of thousands of scientists in the physical sciences are now turning their focus towards biology. The text should appear within the next few years and suggestions can be mailed at will.)

All texts present exactly the same bits of information - chosen from an actually endlessly varied field; they have nearly identical illustrations, nearly identical exercises, present identical, absurd falsifications of atomic and molecular structure; the exact same substances are discussed (=solid evidence of plagiarization; the substances are "classical" only to the aged authors and you are not likely to meet the majority of them again), the exact same explanations are given, everything is repeated four times making most of the text mass redundant; overall the books are criminally incoherent, much due to that substance classes rather than reaction classes form the "basis" of the chapter division [note: NOT "...the basis of the 'organization'...", since organization can only exist when the reaction classes are the basis for the discussions, the one thing that brings order to organic chemistry!]; never does anyone take a more "holistic" or just "passioned" view, to actually demonstrate the monumental versatility of the concepts discussed - and exactly the same highly vital information is left out, about how to interpret or control all the hundreds of written consecutive equillibria, or what difference it makes to use the methoxide rather than the ethoxide, or why 70% phosphoric acid is used (or, indeed, what is meant by 70%), or why precisely 780K and not 775Kis needed, or how you actually carry out a single reaction and what apparatus should be used, or how you handle and isolate the substances; or how you name those compounds that show up later than the first few chapters (when all the authors suddenly forget the previous efforts of showing completeness in presentation).

The overall impresssion is that of a book from junior high that is just terribly overgrown.