Product Description

Written for calculus based general chemistry courses, particularly honours level or accelerated courses, Chemical Principles helps students develop chemical insight by showing the connections between fundamental chemical ideas and their applications. Unlike other texts, it begins with a detailed picture of the atom then builds toward chemistry's frontier, continually demonstrating how to solve problems, think about nature and matter, and visualize chemical concepts in the same ways as working chemists. The new edition incorporates features that extend the book's emphasis on modern techniques and applications while strengthening its problem solving approach. Atkins/Jones is the only book for this course featuring integrated book specific media that provides students with effective study help via a variety of electronic tools. The website at http://www.whfreeman.com/chemicalprinciples3e has been developed simultaneously with the text and offers a range of tools for problem solving and chemical exploration.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162926 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 738 pages

About the Author
PETER ATKINS, Oxford University - LORETTA JONES, University of Northern Colorado.

Customer Reviews

Generally good
This is one of the more advanced general chem textbooks available. It has a review section at the beginning of the book for those who are not quite ready for college level chemistry. Unlike its two main competitors(Principles of Modern Chemistry by Oxtoby and Chemical Principles by Zumdahl), it introduces quantum chemistry (at very basic level) first. If you have hard time with this book, you might have to go down a level and find a text for regular science major general chemistry, for example, Brown/LeMay/Bursten or Moore/Stanitski/Jurs.

Confusion
Book layout is overly confusing. Text is sometimes not as clear as can be and needs more practice examples (most apparent in sections like isomers and titrations). Yes like one person said before, UCLA does use this text to teach Life science majors, but there are better choices. There are numerous mistakes in the solution guides still, and Zumdahl's "Chemical Principles" is a much better read in my opinion. I actually used it to clear up points this text was muddy on. Your mileage may vary.

Mediocre, at best
So what if UCLA uses this as their primary freshman text? UCSD (where I go), MIT, and other schools use it too, and every student I've met agrees that this book is sub-par. It isn't as clear as it can be, is bereft of example problems that apply to the homework, has at least a few mistakes per chapter in the solutions manual, spends way too much time deriving some (useless) things more applicable to physical chemisty, etc.