Chemistry: Atoms First
The table of context suggests an interesting atoms-first text text for science majors, since the order is a bit more courageous than usual, with thermodynamics very early and kinetics last, but I think this is an approach well worth trying out. Unfortunately, the authors do not implement their approach, as, for example, core ideas from kinetics are still heavily used in the equilibrium chapter (see below). Another great idea for reordering content is to put the section comparing bond strengths of covalent and ionic substances at the end of the energy chapter. Again, unfortunately, the authors stop, however, with the lattice energy of just one compound and do not bother to convert that into an per cation/anion contact amount so that no real comparison is possible.
Be that as it may. A real shortcoming of the book is the incomplete copy-and-paste job. This book started out as a traditional macroscopics-first book, and the authors rearranged the material into a second atoms-first book. There are many problems that remain to be fixed from an incomplete eagle’s eye proofreading (see below).
A second serious shortcoming of the book, which becomes especially obvious when one takes a look at the more advanced topics, is that most of the material has been strongly simplified in comparison with other typical texts for science majors. Therefore this text seems to be more of an advanced non-science major book.
Since each chapter has a glossary, I do not think that would be a problem, however, Appendix B: Essential Mathematics is poorly written and does not cover the material necessary for text.
Of course, one only really starts noticing errors once one is teaching out of a book. Here, I flipped through a couple of chapters, and took a brief look. This is far from the careful eye of an editor.
Fig. 2.18 should be before Fig. 2.16 and 2.17, and the latter figures need to be extended to indicate that atoms are either represented by letters or by spheres.
Section 2.4 is largely incomprehensible as placed in the text. This is probably due to the cut-and-paste job the authors used to rearrange their macroscopics-first into an atoms-first textbook.
Page 124, photoelectric effect: “Somehow, at a deep fundamental level still not fully understood, light is both wavelike and particle-like.” Somehow textbook authors seem to keep copying other freshmen texts. The nature of light is fully described, the theory is called quantum chromodynamics, whether that means anyone understands it is as debatable as quantum mechanics for atoms. However, in most advanced quantum chemistry book the photoelectric effect is treated without quantum chromodynamics ever being mentioned. In other words, light is treated as a classical wave, the metal is treated quantum mechanically, and it works. On the other hand, there are wonderful experiments showing that C60 and porphyrin rings also undergo double slit scattering. Why, oh why use totally misleading examples when there are phantastic chemical ones?
Fig. 3.20 Highly misleading. Smells of the Bohr model.
Fig. 3.21 Many problems. Coloring just the region with the phase information gives a pretty graph, but it needs careful discussion and a clear caption. Some goes for the radial density plots. A common y-axis for all three graphs, potentially with a scale, would be a plus.
Page 464 ..., Energy:
“Heat is usually released or absorbed, but sometimes the conversion involves light, electrical energy, or some other form of energy.” Brutally misleading sentence. Neither light nor electrical energy are heat, and “some other form of energy” is surely not heat either.
“Thermal energy is kinetic energy associated with the random motion of atoms and molecules.” Not so. Thermal energy is the temperature dependent part of the internal energy. This energy may be stored in kinetic energy, but it can also be stored in vibrations, which are half kinetic and half potential, or it may be stored in totally different degrees of freedom such as spin-like components.
Fig 9.6 The depicted process is correct only if the two substances have no internal degrees of freedom, for example, one rare gas, one diatomic gas would not work.
Entropy Chapter:
Page 661: Explanation of S = k ln W for large N incomprehensible, unless “macrostate” is also introduced, and the formulas for the Ws of the most likely and least likely macrostates are derived or at least given.
Fig 12.11 right panel is wrong: S should increase as a log function (not linearly)
Section 12.4 “Free energy is a state function, and at constant temperature and pressure, the standard free energy change (?G°) may be expressed as the following ...” This is highly misleading. The point is that P=Psys=Psurr and T=Tsys=Tsurr, not, say, simply Psys=constant. Moreover, in the whole chapter and in the subsequent chapter the standard and non-standard quantities are not cleanly distinguished, which may be considered overly pedantic, but is of course crucial on page 711 in the subsection “Free Energy and Equilibrium”.
Equilibrium chapter:
Kinetics is introduced last, but equilibrium is still motivated with kinetics (Fig 13.2, 13.6). This can, of course, not work. Something has to give.
Fig 13.11 Highly misleading. (1) the position of K is not only determined by Delta-G0, but also by the mathematical form of Q itself. (2) The authors leave out Delta-G, which is the slope of the G(reaction progress) curve.
Freshmen chemistry is a pretty settled subject. Thus, one should not think it is among the subjects needing frequent updating, and for most of the text that seems indeed to be true. Alas, most textbook authors present atomic and quantum theory as if we still lived 1935, and the current book is unfortunately no exception. Large quantities of chapters two and three belong into the poison cabinet of a few brief “historical remarks” boxes. Yet, I would support keeping this material only, if there were “historical remarks” boxes equally introduced in the remaining text. That is for gases, energy, acids and bases, redox processes, etc… .
Much of the text is written clearly. However, there are various sentences, which are unclear are even incorrect (see above); paragraphs or sections, where concepts are not sufficiently explained (e.g. section 2.4); and subsequent paragraphs without obvious connection. The latter two issues are, again, most probably the consequence of taking a traditional macroscopics-first textbook, and copy and pasting it into an atoms-first textbook. All three need quite a bit of work before I would use the text in my classroom.
As far as I noticed the text is mostly consistent, but that is far from any guarantee, and owing to the copy-and-paste job into an atoms-first book I would be careful. The only obvious problems that caught my eye were the issues of clearly distinguishing standard versus non-standard thermodynamic functions as well as the energy and the enthalpy occasionally.
The text can be easily divided into chapters and sections. Yet, most sections have subsections, and those are first of all not numbered, second, not part of the table-of-contents, and therefore-and most importantly-not part of the pdf (or html) index. This is a huge missed opportunity the authors should improve upon.
The flow of topics follows mostly the standard “atom-first” approach, however the authors chose to explore a slightly different order with thermodynamics very early and kinetics last. As I mentioned above, I think this is an approach well worth trying out, but unfortunately the authors do not follow through consequently. For example, the equilibrium chapter still uses kinetics as introduction and in explanations. Similarly, a short introduction to energy is needed before the atomic structure chapter in an atoms-first book; it is missing here.
I used the pdf, and apart from the index, which could have more substructure, it worked fine for me.
Nothing that stood out from the background of content errors and misleading explanations.
The only examples this rubric applies to are the 12 “Portrait of a Chemist” features distributed throughout the text. While it is probably clear to everyone that chemistry as a science has been and is probably still is dominated by white males. Even though we may see a tipping point towards Asia in the future, clearly, if one aims for name recognition, the examples picked by the authors need to reflect that this. However, selecting 10 white, two hispanic, and no asian chemist (provided I counted counted correctly) seems a bit over the top.
No