Customer Reviews

Physical Chemistry, Solutions Manual

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It is not the healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. Likewise, it is not those who already understand the problem that need the solutions manual, but those who are utterly confused. Unfortunately, the solutions manual is written for those who already have an idea of how to solve the problem. The solutions are not explained in enough detail to truly walk one through a problem.

Usually, I start a problem by writing down the appropriate equations, converting everything to the right units, etc. However, the solutions manual starts a problem with the final equation you will need to solve it, often with the variables already plugged in. This does nothing to help; I have to spend a good deal of time going back to the book to find out where the equations came from. The manual would be much more helpful if it identified the equation that needed to be used to solve a problem (even if it just gave the equation number from the book) and then connected each variable with its specific numerical value in the problem. Unfortunately, more times than not, I am just left confused by the solutions manual.

One could argue that working the problems in more detail would dumb things down and needlessly insult the students' intelligence - but see the opening quote! When I go to the solutions manual, I need to have every step that I need to work the problem spelled out for me.

A final complaint is that the manual is typeset poorly. This is most evident in the parentheses and brackets - often a single-line parenthesis or bracket is simply scaled up to encompass multiple lines, which looks weird and out of proportion. Additionally the terms in equations are often spaced weird, and exponents are no smaller than coefficients. Overall it is obvious that the equations were typeset in text mode, not equation mode, and the manual looks significantly worse than the textbook as a result.

I would rather the authors err on the side of explaining the problems in too much detail instead of too little. Unfortunately they have done just the opposite. It may all seem so easy to someone who has seen this material before, but the manual is not written at a basic enough level for those who are going through the material for the first time.

Book came when I needed it. I would order from this person again. I was very satisfied.