Physical Chemistry: Understanding Our Chemical World. Paul Monk. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2004, 618 pp., $44.95 (softcover). ISBN 0-471-49181-0.

摘要

I am all too aware that courses in physical chemistry are often not recalled with fond memories by those who go on to pursue careers in biology and medicine. Once at lunch with a former student and some of her young physician friends, I asked if physical chemistry wasn’t one of the most valuable courses they had. After a period of quiet, one of them remarked that the textbook was good for propping up a table with one short leg, and another asked, “What is physical chemistry?”As a teacher of physical chemistry for 40 years, using the various texts by Moore and then Atkins, Laidler, and others, I came to Monk’s book with a great deal of prejudice favoring traditional ways of structuring …