Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach

Additional Book Details

As the first modern physical chemistry textbook to cover quantum mechanics before thermodynamics and kinetics, this book provides a contemporary approach to the study of physical chemistry. By beginning with quantum chemistry, students will learn the fundamental principles upon which all modern physical chemistry is built. The text includes a special set of "MathChapters" to review and summarize the mathematical tools required to master the material Thermodynamics is simultaneously taught from a bulk and microscopic viewpoint that enables the student to understand how bulk properties of materials are related to the properties of individual constituent molecules. This new text includes a variety of modern research topics in physical chemistry as well as hundreds of worked problems and examples.

"McQuarrie and Simon have developed an excellent modern physical chemistry course that should inspire us to rethink our curriculum." -­‐-­‐Journal of Chemical Education"

It is a superb book, to be greatly appreciated and treasured by generations of students tocome. My congratulations to the authors for a task so well executed. All of us who labor to teach the dreaded P. Chem. course are in your debt." -­‐-­‐Richard Zare, Stanford University"

McQuarrie and Simon approach physical chemistry in a fashion different from most other books. The approach is pedagogically pleasing, as it builds up physical chemistry from considerations of atoms to systems containing numerous molecules." -­‐-­‐Choice

"It is beautifully produced, with clear diagrams and nice touches, such as the short biographies of scientists that appear between chapters...(McQuarrie and Simon) set high standards and many of us, as teachers and professionals in physical chemistry, will find inspiration in, and have our aspirations raised by, this text." -­‐-­‐The Times Higher

"In the undergraduate quantum course here at Princeton, we use your physical chemistry textbook, which many of us affectionately call "Big Red." I don't think that most people expect a lot out of a physical chemistry book, except maybe to be confused. Your book, however, I found to be truly outstanding. It is both a thorough and exceptionally clear presentation of physical chemistry concepts. I have friends in the physics department who survived their very rigorous quantum courses by relying on your book because they couldn't understand the one used in the physics class." -­‐-­‐Benjamin Goldstein, chemistry major at Princeton University

"A true double thumbs up! Throughout my entire undergraduate study, both thermodynamic and reaction kinetics were conducted in a very classical manner. Whereas most of the advanced courses, thermo. and reaction kinetics, conducted here in CMU are basically dealing with all kinds of microscopic phenomena. Your book has served as a very good platform to link up my previous experiences with my current study." -­‐-­‐Lim Jit Kang, a Graduate Student at Carnegie Mellon University