Customer Reviews

Physical Chemistry (Topics in Physical Chemistry)

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

 

 

This textbook is one of the best text in Physical Chemistry in the modern time. Although not a classic, it is well organized and pulls all the important information and problems from a variety of sources. The writing is clear and logical for both undergraduate and graduate students alike.

This is the worst physical chemistry book ever used. Luckily, for most, it is rarely used precisely because it is so terrible, especially as an undergrad text. Maybe this is a good textbook for graduate-level studies or, as my professors use it, as a reference text for someone who has a PhD in the topics already.

SUMMARY OF GIANT FLAWS:
- Typos in figures, equations, text, etc.
- Ambiguity and errors in wording (the difference between speed and velocity means a lot in solving homework problems!)
- Math comes out of nowhere with no justification
- Extremely wordy and unclear
- No example problems - a tragedy for use at the undergrad level
- Chapter and section are not listed at the top of each page, so have fun memorizing that Ch29 is on Dense Phases, not Kinematics!
- Information needed to solve problems (i.e. specific heats, etc) is often not even found within the text
- It is the weight of a small child

I would like to share with you a small sample of the reviews of the book from course evaluations from my last quarter of Thermodynamics:

"Berry, Rice, and Ross was the worst textbook I have ever used, in any class, ever. It actually decreased my understanding of the material every time I tried to read it. The text reads like it was translated badly from German--horribly convoluted and unclear. The entire thing was rife with errors--important equations would stated incorrectly, captions to figures made no sense, homework problems would refer to the wrong equations/figures, etc. There were no example problems, variables were poorly defined (you would have to search through huge paragraphs to find out what theta* was, and even once you found the reference you would still be confused), and stupidest of all, the chapter and section numbers were not listed at the top of each page, so that you were never sure what chapter you were in as you flipped through the book."

"BRR was the worst chemistry text I have ever had. NEVER AGAIN should it be used for this course, or any other undergraduate thermo course, for that matter."

"Physical Chemistry, by Berry, Rice, and Ross. Frankly, the book was not very useful at all. It was incredibly dense, not concise at all, and frankly sometimes downright confusing. I feel like some of the problems from this book were more difficult because you had no idea what they were asking than because of the science involved."

"SO BAD. BRR has way too many typos throughout. I hate it so much waj n jhmj, mmmvfhgt bh kh mnhg nbgn b. Sorry, its just impossible to express my frustration and rage with BRR in words. The problems are also very poorly written."

"Berry Ross and Rice is easily the worst textbook I have ever used in college. If you randomly picked a book from the Library of Congress catalogue, it would be more effective at teaching thermodynamics than BRR. It is incomprehensible gibberish, with a healthy dose of typos to further prevent learning."

"The text was awful (authors: BBR,Berry and Rice?). It was expensive, heavy, and terribly written. There were mistakes throughout the text, which made understanding the material only that much more difficult. Nothing was explained well and the limited derivations of equations were stilted and useless. It was really frustrating to have to spend so much money on something so unhelpful and even detrimental to my learning."

This book puts a high value on clarity and logic. Time invested with this book is repaid with UNDERSTANDING.