Chemistry Books for the Smart? 46
enzyme asks: "A couple of weeks back,
chrisd asked for
recommendations on computer books. This made we wonder: What are the great chemistry books? I want to know what books the chemistry geeks recommend! What are good books on chemistry - textbooks, popular science...whatever! Anything that an intelligent person without a PhD in chemistry can comprehend. What can I read to help me understand chemistry - my old chemistry textbooks don't really do this."
How about ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How about ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Tough weblog.
Is there any other? (Score:3, Insightful)
Take them in order (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Physics
2. Chemistry
3. Biology
Think of it this way:
Without physics, there can be no chemistry. Without chemistry, there is no biology
Re:Take them in order (Score:3, Interesting)
To really grok most physics problems requires at least passing familiarity with integration and derivation.
(One could argue that Newton/Leibnitz invented/discovered the calculus to deal with some of their more vexing problems)
Coursework attempting to impart an understanding of physics without the use of calculus is about as popular as compulsory military service
Not necessarily (Score:1)
For example, having a knowledge of QED (as the post below suggests) or any Physics background, in fact, won't help too much in an Organic Chemistry course. Now, I'll admit I have hardly taken any Physics (save a summer school course in High School), but I gotta say that I thoroughly enjoyed and understood OChem without it (as well as without Bio).
Now, certain specific disciplines within Chemistry (especially Physical Chemistry) would benefit a great deal from a background in Physics (it is a prerequisite, in fact, at my University), but not always.
I guess the key to understanding what the difference between the disciplines is is scale. Physics takes both extremes, examining both the quark and gluon as well as the star and the quantum singularity. Chemistry takes the "small" area - we examine molecules (obviously), while Bio looks at organisms, and Biochem falling in between.
You'd, in the end, be fairly surprised how anti-intuitively molecules can act WRT the laws of Physics.
As for books, I wish I could help, but I'm really just a young'un. All I can say is that my OChem book [amazon.com] was fairly decent and took a good overview of the basics. The book [amazon.com] I used in AP Chem was pretty good (although I used the 2nd ed, I think). Of course, being textbooks, they will cost you a ton, but they're a good way to go. Hope I could help!
Re:Not necessarily (Score:3, Interesting)
Try looking at it backwards. Don't look for the interesting parts of chemistry in physics, rather look for the interesting parts of physics in chemistry. Poring over and memorizing periodical tables and reaction charts may give you an understanding of how chemistry works, but even the broadest concepts of the underlying physics can give you a better appreciation of why it works.
Therein lies the path to deeper understanding of chemistry, Grasshopper. [grin]
It's kind of like the OSI layering standard.
This message is displayed on your browser after:
Each layer building on the other to make itself understood. A thorough grounding in mathematics gives you the basics for delving into physics. Even the most elementary physics can give you a deeper understanding of chemistry, as can an understanding of chemistry give you a deeper appreciation for the intricacies of biology (although my heart goes out to you when you have to deal with the details of organic chem [grin])
Re:Not necessarily (Score:1)
In the world of actually useful teaching, you start with what the person really wants to do -- display HTML, in your example. Teach them that! HTML can be displayed from a local file; start right there!
Once they grok the basic HTML, add in the non-HTML bits like jpeg and audio.
Then, when, they grok how the computer displays the files, go into the "but you have to get the html to the user over a network" part.
Once they got the idea of how it goes over a simple network, add in the firewall bit (you didn't even mention that)
And so on, and so on.
Why? Because even the most motivated person needs a handle to hang new knowledge on. My way, they start with something they know and use; the knowledge builds on a foundation of rock.
Your way, you start from a foundation of sand: the person is learning by rote because there can be no understanding without context. You have no context, so your people will have no understanding.
When people learn, they automatically pick up the 'important' parts and skip the 'unimportant' parts -- it's human nature. Your way, they have no way to tell the important from the trivial, and will pick the wrong bits as important, and skip over the wrong bits as trivia. When it comes time to use the information, they'll only have half the story at best, and will take longer to understand anything.
Re:Not necessarily (Score:2)
Anyone can grok the HOW (a reasonably bright chimpanzee can be taught to hammer out HTML, indeed many a chimp makes a fairly good living at it these days!)
The parent of this post was looking to suppliment his(her?) shallow knowledge of chemistry and to gain a deeper understanding of that subject matter.
To gain an understanding of the WHY one must first fully understand the foundation upon which the knowledge is based. The OSI example was perhaps a poor choice (so shoot me, I was trying to reach the geeks in the audience)
You might say "Bugger the whys", but knowing _why_ something works gives you a deeper understanding of _how_ something works. Which I believe was the original intent of this thread. Indeed, you may come up with a better way of how to do something once you understand why that something works the way it does.
Take simple arithmetic for instance. Division to be specific. You can tell a class about the no-no on division by zero. You can state it as simple fact, as if the God of Division parted the heavens one day and a flaming finger came out of the sky, pointed to the first math teacher and spake "THOU SHALT NOT DIVIDE BY ZERO" A lot of kids will be satisfied by that (particularly in the Bible Belt ) but there will be a group of kids who will ask "Why not?" You can show them "why not" by solving division problems using multiplication... e.g.
12 / 4 = z
12 = 4 x z
z = 3
fair enough... so therefore
12 / 0 = z
12 = 0 x z
what number can you multiply by zero to get twelve?
That is the "why" to the prohibition on division by zero.
The "hows" are good at creating things that people want. You can then sell those things to get more research grants to finance more "whys".
It's the "whys" that eventually lead you to building more and better "hows"..... a nice self reinforcing loop, that.
The "whys" are what lead to a better understanding of any subject matter, and indeed our entire universe.
Just think.... if you answer a "why" that no one has ever thought to ask before, you might find yourself sitting on a dais in Stockholm one day!
Re:Take them in order (Score:2)
I see your logic, though, and it makes a LOT more sense your way.
Start with some Quantum Mechanics (Score:3, Interesting)
Good PopSci QM books are:
1. QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard Feynman
2. In Search of Schrodinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality by John Gribbin
3. Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries by John Gribbin
4. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
More advanced QM books if you are willing to get into it:
1. Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Ramamurti Shankar
2. The Feynman Lectures (really just concentrate on vol. 3)
3. Quantum Mechanics (2 vol.) by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, Frank Laloe, and Bernard Dui
I'll leave it to my chemistry friends to fill in the rest from QED on
More truth then you might think... (Score:3, Interesting)
The 'patterns' in chemistry, more so then in any other intro-level science, are buried three or four layers deep, in ways that no approximation can save. To truly understand chemistry requires immense amounts of quantum mechanics and other physics-layer things. Only once these things are understood deeply can chemistry be "derived".
This is in amazingly stark contrast to Physics, where we can teach people "Newtonian physics" and while it's an approximation, it's a good one for most people. Or math, where we don't all start on elliptic equations.
"Chemistry" is like that; it's like trying to start with elliptic equations, or quantum mechanics, or going straight to the moon instead of building up to it. As a result, it's all memorization, rules of thumb, exceptions to the rules of thumb, exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions, and then another large mass of memorization, repeat ad naseum. It's actually to the point where I'm not convinced a whole lot of time should be spent on it in high school or college for non-majors, as unlike physics, very little of chemistry will help you understand the real world, except for the fact that it exists and a few basics. (Unless of course you're going to study it. In which case if you know it's a for-majors-only course, I think it might be possible to organize it much better.)
Simulation (Score:3, Informative)
"Computer Simulation of Liquids" by M. P. Allen, D. J. Tildesley (1997), Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0198553757
It is a bit tricky to get hold of because it is out of print, but it is the only undergraduate chemistry textbook worth its shelfspace.
With respect to understanding chemistry, what aspects interest you? Phys Chem, Organic, Bio, Inorganic, Theoretical? Understanding one won't necessarily help you understand the others. I've been studying chemistry for 10 years now, and I've given up trying to understand much of it...
Children's chemistry books (Score:3, Informative)
I read these books as a 9 year old, did all the experiements, and to this day, I still find myself reciting basic principles from them to my colleagues in hospitals, molecular biology labs and other technical settings [a college degree in a related science doesn't fill in all the gaps of a practical understanding of the day-to-day world. An early exposure grounds you in the basics, and gets you seeing/thinking about things in chemical terms]
The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments (Robert Brent, 1960) (not any of the many variant titles) is head and shoulders above any other chemistry book I'd give a bright grade schooler. I hunted down a copy for my own kids, and they loved it.
Chemical Magic (forgot the authors) is one of the best of the many "cool effects to impress your friends" books out there.
Add a good grounding in stoichiometry, energies, entropy, electronegativity, and a few other basic
things, and there's no telling how far it'll take them. I got thrown out of Chemistry in the first month of class (incompetent teacher wanted "her' answers on tests, not the correct ones) and took the Chemistry ACHs with no formal chemistry coursework. I got a 770 out of 800 (top 1%, beating all the advanced chem seniors at our school) and ended up placing out of a year of college chem, simply on the basis of having my eyes opened early. I ended up getting doctorates in Molecular Bio (which is largely chemistry) and Medicine, so those books must not have led me too far astray.
Chemistry or Physics (Score:1)
If you're so frigging -smart-, (Score:1)
There's no right answer (Score:3, Interesting)
What part of chemistry is it you want to understand?
Once you learn a set of patterns, and get a feel for them (like the relations in the periodic table, or the way the properties of organics change as the carbon backbone changes length) it becomes easier to learn new ones. But if you haven't got an objective in mind, it's difficult to understand why it is worth the effort.
Re:There's no right answer (Score:2)
Re:There's no right answer (Score:2)
I have to admit that when I was in my last school year I had access to the chemicals, equipment and workshop facilities to build a fairly serious "dirty bomb". (I didn't, by the way.)But those were the days when schools had kilogram jars of thorium oxide and uranyl nitrate, and the uranyl nitrate wasn't made from the residues AFTER the U235 had been removed).
Even though things are better regulated now, possessing too much chemical knowledge in certain areas could make you a target.
Computational chemistry could be interesting (Score:1)
Chemistry is a lab science, not just theory (Score:2, Informative)
Taking a class also has another important benefit: access to a lab. Don't discount the value of hands on experience. Chemistry is a lab science and you should spend some time doing wet chemistry. Since most chemistry is too expensive to do at home (a poorly equipped home lab can cost thousands), this is a good cheap way to do it.
Next off, I'd recommend the Chemical Demonstrations series by Bassam Shakhashiri. I can only find the first one at amazon, but I think there are at least four. Most of the reactions that he gives are pretty entertaining and provide interesting ways to learn the concepts. If you can get the chance to do a few of the demos, go for it.
If you're still interested, I'd recommend taking an intro organic class, and whatever analytical chem you can find. The labs that go along with these classes are a blast and the content is more than worthwhile. At the JC level you've probably only blown a few hundred dollars on classes and books, and earned it all back in the time spend doing labs.
Once you've got the concepts down, the newsgroup sci.chem is pretty entertaining. Uncle Al is a kook who seems to a little about every facet of the field. At the very least, you'll get an idea of the real world problems that non academic lab chemists are working on.
By now you'll have found part of the field you enjoy. I liked analytical chem and spectrophotometry. Mainly because you can hack on equipment as well as chemicals. Try building some of your own lab equipment. Making a good balance is a challenge, building a homebrew spectrophotometer is a bit tougher. The amount you can learn from these projects is priceless. If that isn't your cup of tea, try doing simple chemical analysis around your home. pH is pretty easy to work with on a small scale, chlorine in the water might also be doable. Electroplating can also be fun. You'll need to buy some equipment, reagents and standards. Chemists have an old joke about analysis: You can have it cheap, fast and accurate. Pick any two. For messing around at home, start with cheap and prioritize the rest. Look for shortcuts and see how these shortcuts effect the outcome of you're experiment. The fun comes with the process, not the results.
At home I'd stay away from toxics and large quantities of flammable or corrosive materials. If you can't put it down the drain with copious amounts of water, chances are you don't want large quantities of it around. Strong acids and bases demand some respect, particularly HNO3. I got a nasty nitric acid burn in college and my skin was yellow and crusty for weeks. Nitric acid also produces 'smog' in many of it's reactions so ventilation is required. You'll learn the saftey stuff in class. Follow it wherever you are. I've worked in plating shops where acids where stored next to cyanide salts. Not good. Learn how not to kill yourself before working with anything that can kill you.
Chemistry is a bit like computer science. You can learn the theory from a book. Yet until you get your hands dirty and try to apply the principles you're learning, it's nothing but theory. I'm sure everyone else will have some good suggestions for books. My suggestion is to learn the basics in a classroom and practice them in a lab. Once you're there you'll find a wealth of interesting things to read. Get to the point where you know what you're doing, then start on your own projects. It's more fun to actually hack on the stuff than read about it.
From my bookshelf... (Score:1)
The classic is Michael Faraday's "The Chemical History of a Candle." Yes, that Faraday, the one capacitance units are named after. Amazon has a printing in stock.
Another, more from a materials science POV, but still of chemical interest: "The New Science of Strong Materials, Or, Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor" by J. E. Gordon. When someone naively comments that quantum effects aren't visible in every day life, you can smile knowingly after reading this book.
Phillip Ball also has a number of interesting titles, "Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water" is most relevant to your question.
Pretty thin I know, but those three should get you started.
Zummie! (Score:1)
Re:Zummie! (Score:1)
Re:Zummie! (Score:2)
Now, there are some very good computer science first-year textbooks (such as "structure and interpretation of computer programs", which can be read again and again, even by professionals). There are a lot of quite good ones (e.g. "Deitel & Deitel"'s books which cover a relatively broad subject in a traditional way, but fails in being all too thick, uses too many examples, and not offering enough insight to be worth reading again). And there are lot's of bad ones ("Dummies guide to...") that covers only what they think you need to know to do X, and hardly have anything to do with CS or SE.
Zumdahl clearly falls in the "Deitel & Deitel" category. It's good, it's thick as a brick. It is aimed at the average student, not the good ones. It has a lot of boring examples and exercises to skip. And it offers no deep insights that will teach you something new, once you've taken chemistry 101. But it gives you a good overview of the subject, spread with a few simple lies to make the material more accessible to people not already having a clue about chemistry.
What we are looking for is the AOCP, SICP, Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest, Norvig, Garey/Johnson, Foley/van Dam/Feiner/Hughes, GoF, etc... Books that clearly have influenced lot's of practicing programmers and computer scientists. Personally, I doubt there are many. Chemistry is still mostly an experimental science---it's just too damn hard to predict anything that happens, unless somebody has already done the experiment before.
No such animal (Score:1)
I looked for the same thing for years and found nothing. My solution was to take a year of general and a year of organic chemistry at a local community college. Before you dismiss this option as "hey, that's not a book," consider the advantages.
First, your goal (like mine) is to understand, not to jump through some gateway subject hoop. The "serious" books are all horrible and the others are for entertainment, but there are some truly great teachers out there, most of them young and still full of love for the subject but without the political skills or baggage of a lot of Major Institutions, hence you tend to find them at community colleges. They have time to talk to you, there are practically no barriers to entry -- the worst you'll face is "instructor permission," which you can get past by telling the instructor that you want to take the class because you want to understand the subject and they'll turn to putty in your hands. (After taking the course you'll be able to diagram the mechanism of the chemistry instructor --> putty reaction.)
Second, it's convenient and almost risk-free. Take it at night or during the day. If you're worried about the grades or time commitment, audit the class!
Fourth, it'll keep you on a schedule and you'll get done sooner and understand more because the course will be reasonably compact and planned to teach you the topic. There is no #3. Just seeing if you were paying attention.
Finally, o-chem in particular requires a lot of memorization (I needed about 120 reactions for one final), and an instructor can give you hints about how and what to memorize that you could not get from a book.
It's kind of like math in that you get way more from doing it than reading about it, so take lab too. If you're worried about the cheezy CC chemistry lab facilities, take lab anyway and then go take it again at the University of Money later.
The quality of the instructors varies widely, so ask around and find out who's really good. It's usually pretty obvious. If you need a recommendation and can get close to Seattle, I can recommend someone here [ctc.edu] who is an unbelievably good chemistry teacher (and one of the best teachers in general that I've ever met).
And by the way -- good on ya for learning some chemistry! It's a great subject, and it certainly has a lot to do with pretty much everything you breathe, sit on, eat, smell, run away from, and have in your pancreas. Watch out for that physics stuff, though -- it's the only thing possibly even more beautiful than chemistry, and it will shamelessly attempt to lure you away with its seductive ways <subliminal>give in</subliminal>.
Pauling's book. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pauling's book. (Score:2)
BTW, I have two editions of this book. Several years before taking high school chem. an aunt bought a used copy of this text. This older edition is copyrighted 1955 and titled "College Chemistry." Because of this book I was a huge jump ahead once I took chemistry. My favorite thing about this second edition are the pen and ink figures, which sadly are re-drawn in the Dover edition.
Well, I highly recommend this book. Start with the first chapter and continue through the book. You won't be disappointed.
Understanding? (Score:1)
Understanding is tough to pin down. There is understanding: I can fix my car when it breaks (for the most part) and there is *understanding*: I can build and design a new type of engine. I think some of the talk about being able to recognize the general trends that occur in chemistry is the best approach. Knowing how electrons move, for example in an SN1 or SN2 reaction, does not necessarily require one to understand the quantum mechanics behind that reaction. Well, to a degree. To *understand* the reaction, in that my-PhD-is-in-theoretical-organic-chemistry kind of way, you would need to know it, but to the lay person, it is almost extraneous information. This is because all sciences are interdependent. If you dive too deeply into one subject, you invariably learn alot about the rest of them. I like the Biology -> Chemistry -> Physics example. You look at proteins, how they function, their form, which is dictated by the amino acids which behave according to their charge or hydrophobicity/philicity which in turn gets into electrostatics and repulsive forces etc... further and further down the line....you could go bonkers.
If you intend on pushing the limits of knowledge, new theories, new mechanism etc.... Then yes it would be necessary to have that sub-atomic/QM framework to work under. If that is not your goal, then:
1. realistically know the rules (not the exceptions, that can come later)
2. realistically know how it works in a larger framework of the system (structure=function=regulation for example)
3. and to a degree, why it works that way
And like someone else mentioned, chemistry is very large, polymers, analytical, inorganic, organic, biochem. I mean, there is a branch of chemistry that deals solely with the reactions and behavior of Flourine (pretty wild stuff too, well for chemists)
You could spend a lifetime doing that...but enjoy yourself, I think it is a blast.
Cheers,
-js
"101 Stories about Chemistry" (Score:1)
It's a surprisingly uncommon book. Google doesn't know about it.
Here's a plea. Look for this book in your local library or junk book store. It's worth it.
Especially Muscovite readers with perhaps better access to old MIR books.
The other plea. If anyone, anywhere in the world is willing to sell me one or two copies of this book at ANY reasonable price, please, *please* contact me.
Thanks. Sitaram.
Re:"101 Stories about Chemistry" (Score:1)
Simple, yet elegant. (Score:1)
by Peter William Atkins
Here's a good list... (Score:1)
- "Chemical Principles." Richard E. Dickerson, H. B. Gray, M. Y. Darensbourg.
- "Molecules." Peter W. Atkins.
- "The Periodic Kingdom: A Journey into the Land of the Chemical Elements." Peter W. Atkins.
- "Designing the Molecular World: Chemistry at the Frontier." Philip Ball.
- "General Chemistry." Linus Pauling.
- "Chemistry of the Elements." Norman N. Greenwood and A. Earnshaw.
- "Chemistry: Principles and Applications." Peter W. Atkins.
- "Chemical Curiosities: Spectacular Experiments and Inspired Quotes." H. W. Roesky, K. Mockel, Roald Hoffman.
- "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics." David R. Lide (editor-in-chief) and H.P.R. Frederikse (assoc.ed.)
That last book is up to its 80th edition or so.
- Entropix
Chemistry reading... (Score:2)
I'd greatly recommend Primo Levi's "The Periodic Table", which is not so much about the elements of the table, so much as his life as a working chemist.
For a geek-level work, Jerry March's "Advanced Organic Chemistry" holds the same place in organic chemists' hearts as Bjarne Stroustrup's "C++ Programming Language" holds for programmers. It's a graduate level book, but one which is accessible to anyone with an interest in its subject.
Morrison and Boyd (Score:1, Informative)
For a general overview of chemistry... (Score:1)
The Extraordinary Chemistry of Ordinary Things (Score:1, Informative)
The Extraordinary Chemistry of Ordinary Things,
Third Edition
Carl Snyder, University of Miami
0-471-17905-1; © 1998
see:
publisher's description [wiley.com]
amazon.com's page with related items [amazon.com]
You're probably ignoring this by now (Score:2)
Caveman Chemistry [hsc.edu]
Book Recommendations (Score:2)
As someone with a Bachelor's Degree in chemistry, and a long involvement with the Australian and International Chemistry Olympiads, please allow me to make a few humble suggestions.
Physical Chemistry: The bible here is Atkins [amazon.com]. I have the third edition, and it can be a little dense at times (actually, a lot of times). If your mathematics and physics education is not up to following thermodynamic proofs that skip several derivation steps, you might find it frustrating. I hear that the more recent editions are somewhat better in this regard, and have also have better pictures.
Inorganic Chemistry: A great book to have for this is Chemistry of the Elements [amazon.com] by Greenwood and Earnshaw. This is not a comprehensive coverage of the discipline, but a great reference and an interesting read.
Analytical Chemistry: A somewhat specialised field, but if it floats your boat we have another bible here, or rather several. Vogel [amazon.com] has books on qualitative and quantitative analysis that are exceptionally comprehensive.
Organic Chemistry: I really don't have a clear recommendation here. Vogel (above) has a book called "Practical Organic Chemistry" which is probably good, given the quality of his other works.
These books are all great references that I've used in my studies of chemistry, but none of them are for beginners in the field. I suggest that if you don't have a fairly good understanding of chemistry already that you find out what books are used at your local University and buy a few second-hand copies from students there. As a smart chappie, you may find some of it a bit pedestrian, but if you are self-educating then you're free to rip through those sections quickly and spend more time on the more interesting and challenging parts.
Good luck. I hope you find that you enjoy chemistry as much as I do.