Customer Reviews

Principles of Modern Chemistry (Saunders Golden Sunburst Series)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book is not as approachable as many general chemistry books; as a previous reviewer has noted, this book is written by physical chemists and the organization and presentation of the concepts in the text reflects this. As a physical chemist, I generally like this text; however, I acknowledge that it's not for everyone and I do have a few critiques.

Students who are not mathematically-inclined will have a hard time with this text: the thermodynamics section, the derivation of the kinetic theory of gases, and some of the derivations of the quantum mechanics material are intimidating! However, students with a firm grounding in math and physics will get much more out of this text than they will out of other standard general chemistry texts like Brown and LeMay (Chemistry The Central Science Tenth Edition).

I would strongly recommend this book for students who have an interest in math and physics or who have already taken an introductory chemistry course and want to understand the phenomena described at a more detailed level. For AP Chemistry or for students who haven't taken intro physics or intro calculus, I would instead recommend the Brown and LeMay book. I feel that its coverage of some of the topics is a bit more superficial, but it is more approachable for students taking chemistry for the first time.

One last note: I dislike the newest edition of this book because they authors reorganized the chapters into a "quantum first" presentation (quantum mechanics is introduced in chapter 4 rather than chapter 15 as it was in the 5th edition). While this organization is suitable for some full-out physical chemistry courses, it is not appropriate for this book. If this book is to be used as a general chemistry book, consider doing the chapters out of order: start with the history of chemistry chapters, skip to the thermo stuff, and come back to quantum later. It's much easier to grasp intuitively if you work from the macro to the micro and not the other way around.

I am really not sure for whom this book is intended. It presents things in an introductory tone, then proceeds to explain concepts as if the reader had a degree in physics, chemistry, and math.

There are three main problems with this book:
First, the book uses math to justify concepts, rather than the concepts justifying the math. Mathematical models are supposed to clarify and propose a logical way of explaining observed phenomena. Instead, Oxtoby will explain physical processes by describing the way in which a math formula or graph is constructed. While this refers back to historically founded rules of chemistry, it does nothing to explain the concept to a reader who has never seen the principles before.
The second problem is that there are barely ANY solved problems in the chapter text. Many of the end-chapter problems have no similarity at all to the few solved problems preceding them. Even intelligent students will be left confused by problems that lack any clear explanation.
The third problem is that the book is simply not well written. Like another reviewer said, make sure you have had a good nights sleep before reading Oxtoby's text. Explanations are often convoluted and do not try to build complexity from simply worded basic principles. In a way, the text should be twice as long, in order to clearly cover all the concepts presented.

Basically, this is an introductory chemistry text for students who have already had introductory chem.

Though many people would find this book distasteful, it is an extremely good source of information for both basic and intermediate chemistry. It is obviously not a book any student can handle, but with a good background in basic chemistry, the book will take the student a long way down the path of chemistry. The book uses colorful pictures and graphs to show the reader what the chemistry looks like in real life rather than just teaching the bare concept.

Chemistry is not about doing word problems; it is about actually seeing the results and learning to analyze these results. If you prefer to just get through chemistry and "learn" how to do problems without learning the real applications, choose another book. If you actually want to learn chemistry, this is the perfect book for you. As opposed to the average textbook that drags a subject matter on, this book is very concise and moves on after showing a derivation of an equation or one sample problem. Obviously this book may seem hard and seemingly impossible to comprehend at times, but a good recommendation is to get enough sleep before reading the book because it is much denser than other introduction to chemistry textbooks.

I started the Fifth edition of this book a couple of years ago. I had found a copy of it and of the workbook for it, in a used bookstore and got them cheap. I finished about 300 pages, then let it slide and gave up. I thought, "this is too much math for me. I just want to learn the concepts." I read a couple of easy chemistry texts that were closer to high school level than college, then tried the Brown and LeMay (also bought used and cheap.)

Brown and LeMay have created a very well constructed, tightly honed book that is permeated with understanding of what college students are likely to find difficult. It's an excellent text and maybe a better college textbook than this one, but in the final analysis, I liked the Oxtoby better. I liked the physical chemistry orientation, chemistry is after all about real, physical stuff. I liked the clear appreciation of the achievements of the great chemists who have gone before us, and the history behind our growing understanding. I liked that it's a straight up attempt by some very deep thinkers about chemistry to communicate their understanding of the subject. I liked that it doesn't spoon feed the reader. It tries very hard to build up everything from first principles, but it doesn't cut out the hard stuff to spare the student. I'm inclined to say that it treats the student with considerably more respect than Brown and LeMay do.

I'm not a young man. I'm many decades past college and am studying chemistry purely for my own interest. I have read a fair amount of molecular biology and some biochemistry and I now feel the need for a deeper understanding of the underlying chemistry. For me, looking at this book is a little like standing at the base of a mountain, trying to get up the courage, the will power, and the commitment for the climb. But I just may make another try at it. I'm convinced that the view from the top will be grand.

If I make it to the top I'll write again.

In contrast to textbooks that spend an enormous ammount of paper on outlining the very principles vaguely, this book gets to the point. It is a much better choice that for instance Munowitz's "Principles of Chemistry" as it is better illustrated and gives betterexplained examples. It has some weaknesses, but it is a real Chemistry book, that might prove useful doing chemical problems. For a really interested person it is not a bad choice.

Principles of Modern Chemistry's strength is that it is well illustrated with very useful graphs, and provided a good overview of basic chemistry throughout most of its contents. The narrative generally followed logically and clearly, if not always in-depth enough. However, when it came to quantum mechanics, the explanations were quite lacking and the structure was rather muddled. Around chapter 15, the book really ceased to be satisfactory, and it would be more efficient to simply skim the illustrations.

I am an undergraduate in an advanced general chemistry class and I had to purchase this...atrocity. Principles of Modern Chemistry is written by three physical chemists, who, while experts in their own fields, have an extremely skewed and flawed view of general chemistry. This book is not an effective textbook. It is replete with mistakes (diagrams,equations!!,questions), and very few effective example questions to reinforce the concepts. Instead, there are random equations placed about, and the central concepts are only lightly discussed. The organization of this textbook is also quite terrible. I love chemistry, I hate this textbook.

This book does a decent job of outlining the 'principles', but fails to draw concepts together in a way that would make the subject more understandable to beginning chemistry students.

This textbook is supposed to be an introductory textbook. However, from the explanations in the textbook, it seems to be written for students who have already had taken general chemistry. The examples are not helpful for solving the problems and the explanations are very wordy and can even be convoluted at times. The ordering of the material is also very confusing and not helpful for most chemistry students. The only good things is that it has lots of problems and they are useful for learning the material.

the book is really a little expensive, but the quality is really worth the price yet. It is like a new one.