Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a slightly different take on general chemistry, July 16, 2008
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.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Who really needs this book?!?, April 22, 2007
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.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great chemistry textbook for college freshmen, March 4, 2005
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.
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