Customer Reviews

Quantum Chemistry and Spectroscopy with Spartan Student Physical Chemistry Software

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

 

 

I was actually one of the reviewers of an early version of many of the chapters of this text. The text itself makes a nice set of lecture notes and it progresses at a reasonable slow pace. I found the presentation and graphics to be quite nice and clear as if the publishers took their cues from similarly produced general chemistry texts.

The text is hardly encyclopedic and complete compared to other texts, notably McQuarrie and Simon, Atkins,
or the venerable Berry, Rice, and Ross. We decided to adopt this text for our two semester physical chemistry course hoping that students would like the pace and context -- however, 3/4 of the way through the year, it has been a disaster!

While the original draft had the usual density of typos, I'm astonished that so many made it through to the final version! There are numerous wrong equations--mostly annoying typos. Most damning is the fact that a lot of the molecular data in the text is wrong as are a number of the spectra.
<strong> Since this is supposed to be a
book focusing on spectroscopy, I find no excuse for this. </strong>
Let me give an example, in Table 8.3, which tabulates the vibrational frequencies, bond lengths, rotational constants, etc. for a number of diatomic species, nearly ALL of the vibrational frequencies listed are incorrect in comparison to the NIST database. Furthermore, the ro-vibrational spectra given in the text for HCl and for CO are clearly NOT the experimental spectra since both are systematically shifted relative the correct experimental spectra. (the text's HCl ro-vibrational spectrum is centered at 2991 cm<sup>-1</sub> (where the forbidden Q-branch should be) compared to the experimental value of 2888 cm^-1. Similarly, for CO, the spectrum should be centered at 2170 cm<sup>-1<\sup> and
not at 2143cm^-1.) At least the spectra are consistent with the wrong
data in table 8.3! This crops up repeatedly through out the text. It frustrates the students and it's embarrassing. These may seem to be picky and petty details. However, spectroscopy is all about
making precise measurement of molecular properties and dynamics.

One reviewer commented on the clumsy wording of the problems. I agree. Having worked out
many on my group black-board with frustrated students...the problems leave much to be desired.
Again, the general sprit of the problems is good...the final result is not so good.

On the other hand, my class has decided to make lemonade out of a lemon. We've started the "Great
Typo Hunt" web-site where students can earn extra-credit by finding and confirming new typos in the text!
It's become a great sport!

This book does not live up to my expectations.
I highly suggest avoiding this book until an extreme make-over occurs. Even then, I would suggest looking at at different text.

This book sucks. It looks very professional, but upon further inspection one finds numerous errors, a rushed feel, and a lame pedagogical level.

The text itself is generally so-so, decent enough but not at all rigorous enough if you want to actually learn any quantum. If you're going to try for a subject like quantum you might as well go for a book like Lowe or Levine that at least tries for some mathematical complexity. There are numerous errors and typos.

The website for the book is useless. There, I said it.

However, the worst part of the book by far is the problems. They are almost to a man poorly worded, confusing, and RIDDLED WITH TYPOS! There is nothing worse than trying to guess what the author meant to write when doing a problem to make it match with the answer in the back. Also, many of the problems look as through they were cranked through as fast as possible using the same format for each one, which leads to wierd, confusing notation.

Bottom line: don't buy this book. If you for some ungodly reason have the book for a class, make sure to buy or check out Lowe and Levine.

This book is meant to be an introduction to quantum chemistry, and it does a wonderful job at that. I am surprised at the other reviews complaining of its lack of rigor...this is meant to be an introduction to the subject. If you want something complete and encyclopedic, fine, go buy McQuarrie or something like that. This is meant as a first course quantum chemistry, and it also does an excellent job of introducing the major ideas necessary for graduate quantum chemistry, and is not afraid of doing the real math and operations necessary.
I feel like people are confusing be willing to explain concisely and in everyday language with lack of rigor.

This is written as a graduate student in chemical physics who majored in both chemistry and physics undergrad.

At least this book isn't very big, but it doesn't seem to coincide with my professor's lectures very well, but it seems to be a generally well-made textbook.

Perfect condition, comes with Student version of Spartan which is a good software for chemistry majors alike. The textbook so far is pretty good. Nothing great, but nothing bad.

Unless Engel's Quantum Chemistry book is required for your class I highly recommend avoiding it. If it is required, find yourself another supplementary book. Quantum mechanics is a challenging field for most undergrads such as myself, and unfortunately Engel only manages to confound this difficulty with his text. While at first glance the text appears approachable, don't be fooled. At almost every turn of the page Engel manages to leave you with more questions than answers. In an attempt at simplicity, Engel only accomplishes convolution. Pick up another text such as McQuarrie Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach(I highly recommend) and you will immediately see the differences in clarity, depth, accuracy, etc . The math that QM is largely structured around is neglected, and although the math may be challenging for an average chem major like myself, I found it incredibly necessary to truely understand QM concepts. Another major problem was that the book is loaded with erros. The errors are so blatant and numerous that you end up second guessing a lot of Engel's concepts and explanations, not an ideal situation when learning QM for the first time. All together I'm giving the book 2/5 stars instead of 1/5 because it looks pretty. Looks have to count for something right? Good luck in QM...

This book is the second of the two book set. You can also purchase the set as a single edition, however that would be a mistake. I've used this text in class and besides being heavily mistake ridden, as others noticed, its extremely unhelpful for Quantum and Thermo beginners. Poor choice.

This book was required for a Spectroscopy class I just took. The explanations were OK, but they were way too basic for the class and didn't go into enough detail. I ended up buying Bernath's Spectra of Atoms and Molecules midway through the term, which provides a much much better (more rigorous) explanation of rotational, vibrational, and Raman spectroscopy. I think the reason that Engel was required for my class was because it also covers NMR, which Bernath does not. A pity.