Customer Reviews

Physical Chemistry: with Applications to the Life Sciences

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

 

 

This book gives a good overview of physical chemistry for bio students. It is somewhat abridged-covers almost all the topics in a normal P chem course-but places its main emphasis on describing the concepts in the context of cellular and molecular biology. Most chapters have a short section describing how topics relate to biochemistry (DNA renaturation is a 2nd order reaction, thermodynamics of ions in solutions, ions and cell membranes, etc.)

It makes use of some calculus, but eases into it gently to avoid overwhelming the student. I grant you that it is about 20 years old, but the laws of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics haven't changed much in this time.

This is simply the best physical chemistry text I have ever used. It is full of unique insights that are thought-provoking, presents things from a physical, rather than mathematical perspective, and explains thermodynamics better than anything else I have read.

Dear Readers

I got this thing in 2005. And it was originally published back in 1979.
I wonder "have things changed since then?"....the era of the 1970's. Kind of an idealistic era.
In some ways the book is good. It's certainly user friendly. That is it contains a lot of solved problems.

I would certainly have been interesting to be in the author's classes. Just to "check out their psychology".

Then of course there are the shall we call it the "human interest" essays that are dotted throughout the book. This book is almost as much about the humanities as it is the sciences. That is the authors seem to be trying to make a point about humanity as much as they are trying to teach one physical chemistry.

Interestingly enough there is only one edition of the book.

sjw

This is the hardback version of Physical Chem with Applicatns Life Sciences

# ISBN-10: 9780805324020
# ISBN-13: 978-0805324020
# ASIN: 080532402X

I had to purchase this book for class and it served as very helpful for the study sheet I made for my first exam. This text was required so I'm not sure how it compares to other Physical Chemistry textbooks but it does the job!