Physical Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #385

by Peter Atkins

With the development of a variety of exciting new areas of research involving computational chemistry, nano- and smart materials, and applications of the recently discovered graphene, there can be no doubt that physical chemistry is a vitally important field. It is also perceived as the most daunting branch of chemistry, being necessarily grounded in physics and mathematics and drawing as it does on quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and statistical thermodynamics.

With his typical clarity and hardly a formula in sight, Peter Atkins' Very Short Introduction explores the contributions physical chemistry has made to all branches of chemistry. Providing an insight into its central concepts Atkins reveals the cultural contributions physical chemistry has made to our understanding of the natural world.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Science, Chemistry, Nonfiction, Physics, Stem, Reference

128 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 6, 2014

About the author

Peter William Atkins is an English chemist and a Fellow of Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. He retired in 2007. He is a prolific writer of popular chemistry textbooks, including Physical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Quantum Mechanics. Atkins is also the author of a number of popular science books, including Atkins' Molecules, Galileo's Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science and On Being.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Mingchuan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very elegant introduction to physical chemistry. The language, the way things are introduced, the usage of graphs and formulae are all very Atkinsian. Prof Atkins has always been one of my idols because of his works of science popularising. This little book not just helped me with understanding many of the contents of physical chemistry, but also vastly increased my enthusiasm of chemistry and chemical engineering.

[Vikas Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully lucid exposition of this vital science.... I wish all these books had existed when I was a student

[Kamakana · Rating 3 out of 5]

011115: this is a later addition. so i give it to my father for his professional appraisal- which is couched in regular scientific caution, as advancing a theoretical idea rather than critical take. for father, who even recognizes the author's name though never met, this book highlights a question of whether this is possible to introduce without over-simplifying. or, in his case, not giving enough enthusiasm for spectroscopy. i ask father if he would write an intro, and he reminds me he has, though by now superseded- but that was university text not introductory to me, 'introduction to quantum concepts in spectroscopy'. if you are a scientist maybe it is intro. to me it is not. and really, he insists, this is only from his perspective. this is a good book...

first review:
well. i read it, after a second time. i do not know enough chemistry, physics, quantum or classical, to know whether this is actually a four or five. i will ask my father, who spent his working life as a 'theoretical chemistry' prof at u, to look at it. father did his masters at cal tech, taught, researched, used computers- which he suggests is the biggest sea change in this field since he started- so this is perhaps for him introductory. all i know is that of the secondary school division of science into biology, chemistry, physics, it was physics i found most difficult...

i have lived since those school years comfortably ignorant of what father studied, though this book does help me better understand, and i can best appreciate this through the lens of what philosophy i have read. that is, this requires a mode of thinking which is untranslated foreign language, which is of course familiar, transparent, logical, and perhaps noticed only when it breaks against something unexpectedly out/changing of its 'phrase regime', most famously quantum theory. i have enough trouble with classical theories. and it has been years since i even looked at or understood logic of a periodic table. but this book, possibly physics itself, makes it make sense...

so why is this a three and no more? mostly my own ignorance, which this book, of this realm of thought, does not encourage me to read much further. i tried this once, just when by random i bought it, but hit a wall at twenty pages. this time i decided just to keep reading despite failing to grasp this or that law or theory, hoping that it would eventually pull together like a wandering work of fiction... it might do so for others, it might be a mistake to think of it as logically coherent fiction. because it is not fiction. yes he does try to verbalize the mathematics involved, yes this might be clear to scientists, yes i suppose it is introductory- just not for me...

and maybe it is the entire, unspoken, embedded philosophy through which this as any scientific pursuit, is best understood- that 'analytic' 'style' i find less congenial, that uses thought of mathematical paradigm, and certainly qualifies my lesser understanding of any science. this series of 'very short introductions' is short at least. if it does not seem too 'introductory'...

[Jose Brox · Rating 4 out of 5]

No tan tan bueno como "Thermodynamics: a very short introduction", pero aún así muy bueno. El problema es que la Química Física es demasiado amplia como para introducirla con fundamento en 120 páginas pequeñas. Aún así, Atkins realiza un gran trabajo explicando la termodinámica, la química cuántica, la importancia de los potenciales químicos en los cambios físicos y químicos de la materia, etc. Una pena que no le quede espacio para soltar demasiadas perlas informativas ni para elaborar el discurso elegante que le caracteriza.

[Wing · Rating 3 out of 5]

As promised, Atkins presents a high school level introduction on this topic without any mathematics. Perhaps this makes it easier to comprehend. Perhaps not. Without numbers, the concepts become even more abstract. Energy is never defined - not a criticism and this is to be expected. But this makes the whole exposition wanting. Notwithstanding, the reader should still manage to understand the origin of the characteristics of atoms, bonds, reactions, states, and phases. These are completely demystified and given logical explanations.

[Alessandro Piovaccari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good book from Peter Atkins. That said, I give it only 3 stars because of two main drawbacks. First, the book cover too much material to be a short introduction becoming sometimes an information storm (with way too many acronyms) to be absorbed in the time required to read this introduction. Second, the approach of limiting the math to be simpler, in reality at times this complicates the matter even further making it difficult to follow the argument.

[Narendra Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book like a novel. If you know the subject, it will be refreshing to read this. It provides a brief overview of physical chemistry topics avoiding all the underlying mathematics and explaining and interconnecting topics the easiest way possible. I highly recommend the book everybody studying or teaching chemistry.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This covered a lot of topics taught over the full year of college general chemistry classes (which I have already taken). I was hoping for a deeper dive into physical chemistry, but I suppose that can't be achieved in a very short introduction. It's a fine book if you really are a true beginner to chemistry. Also, beware of a few typos. (Livermorium's atomic number is 116 and oganesson's is 118!)

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent survey of the main sub branches within physical chemistry, but the book doesn't flow: it presents the different branches more or less separately.

Though informative, it's really quite dry. Don't know whether this is the fault of the author or whether chemistry is just a boring subject. Probably a bit of both.