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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good coverage of material; lousy binding, pics, and ancillaries,
By Nate (CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Physical Chemistry (Hardcover)
As with other editions of Atkins' P-Chem (I own 4th, 5th, & 7th), the topics are covered rigorously and at a level that I think is appropriate for a solid junior undergrad course in P-chem.
For a text that keeps up quite admirably with advancements in science, the diagrams and ancillaries (e.g., living graphs) continue to be weak and well behind the pedagogical innovations that make p-chem more accessible to students. The quality of the binding is unacceptably poor. Like others on this page, I too have a copy of the text with the cover that has come apart. Freeman ought to republish the text with improved binding. This text should serve as a reference for students to use for many years to come. It absolutely cannot serve that function with the quality of the binding in this version.
19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
The most poorly edited textbook I have ever read.,
This review is from: Physical Chemistry (Hardcover)
For all the money you're paying for this book, you'd think that de Paula and Atkins could hire someone to actually READ the thing before it was published. There's at least one typo on nearly every page (and more on others). Some of these errors are innocuous, but others completely obfuscate what the authors are trying to say. To make things more of a mess, the examples and mathematical derivations often gloss over several key points that make it difficult for students to follow. And don't even get me started on the problems, which make use of magical values that are nowhere to be found in the book. The solutions are even worse - it's as if the authors mixed up the numbers of the problems in the 7th edition without bothering to update the corresponding solutions.
The representation of units is questionable at best. Who uses dm^3 instead of L as their de facto unit of volume? The authors take their cockamamie unit scheme one step further by representing all numerical values as unitless entities. For example, instead of R = 8.31 (J / mol * K), they'll divide both sides by the units and depict it as R / (J / mol * K) = 298. This baffling treatment of units is unnecessary, inconsistent, and, worst of all, distracting from the material at hand. In a word, terrible. Since this is my first physical chemistry course I have no frame of reference for judging the content (which is decent, as far as I can tell), but the presentation is awful. If you MUST get this book for a class, look for the International edition - the only difference is that the images in the International edition aren't in color. Take the money you save and purchase a separate book that actually presents the material clearly.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Good text, if you want to hate physical chemistry and not learn anything,
By
This review is from: Physical Chemistry (Hardcover)
I can understand the frustration over buying a book and having the binding/printing not very good. Even more frustrating, however, is buying a book to learn something from only to find that you've been hoodwinked in this department as well.
I used this textbook when I first took physical chemistry as an undergraduate. Physical chemistry is a subject that most students struggle with enough, without having to add on top of it explanations that make no sense and nonsensical 'justifications' which are very lousy hand-waving 'proofs' done in an attempt to 'show' the student where certain quantities/formulas are derived from. Even in it's eighth edition the authors have not taken the time to clean up the myriad mistakes that riddle this textbook and pepper the minds of students with an indelible hatred of what they think is physical chemistry. This textbook does not teach nor even present physical chemistry, rather it presents a wonderfully displayed modern version of the emperor's new clothes. Going in the student thinks they are going to be taught physical chemistry, and trustingly they use this textbook as their fabric, the weaver being their teacher. When they emerge they are stark naked to the physical chemistry community having learned no actual physical chemistry, other than possibly the names of a few functions. I have taught several physical chemistry courses and we have used the textbooks by Simons and McQuarrie (my favorite) and another by Engel and Reed which does only slightly better than this one. The only reason I can find that people still use this textbook, other than they know or met Atkins, is that it provides a complete solutions manual-albeit with MANY glaring mistakes-and there are not always enough physical chemists to teach physical chemistry. But then again, Simons and McQuarrie also has a complete solutions manual-it has a few minor mistakes. The mystery remains...
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